Olive oil prices fall to nine-year low, oil world says

Olive oil prices fell to a nine- year low on record production in Spain and rising stocks, combined with lower domestic consumption, Oil World reported. Spanish olive-oil production in 2011-12 is forecast to rise to 1.56 million metric tons from 1.38 million tons a year earlier, the Hamburg-based oilseed researcher wrote in a report. “Producers are now claiming that in many cases prices have fallen below production costs,” Oil World wrote. “Domestic consumption of olive oil apparently declined so far this season as a result of the economic crisis and increased availability of attractively priced sunflower oil.”