The first official estimates of Spain's 2026/27 harvest are due this week, starting with Andalusia's, and the new campaign opens on Thursday. Spanish extra virgin goes into the week at 3.37€/kg on our board, just under the 3.40€/kg level we have treated as a floor.
The week's calendar
| When | What | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| This week | Andalusia's aforo, then Spain's national estimate | The first official figures for the 2026/27 crop |
| Monday 28 | Rain across much of Spain, with AEMET warnings in Cádiz, Málaga and Huelva | Relief from the heat, though forecasts give Jaén and Córdoba only a few millimetres |
| Wednesday 30 | The 2025/26 campaign closes | September's sales set the carry-over, which AICA publishes in mid-October |
| Thursday 1 October | The 2026/27 campaign opens | The first mill yields start to come in |
| No date yet | Ismea–Unaprol estimate of Italy's crop | How much Spanish oil Italian packers will need |
What to watch
Andalusia's first estimate, under a new method
This week the Junta de Andalucía presents its aforo for 2026/27 in Jaén, the first official figure for the region that grows most of Spain's olive oil. Last year's first estimate put Andalusia at 1,080,900 tonnes. Our reading is that a figure below 1.0 million tonnes would lend prices support, while one above 1.1 million tonnes would point to a third comfortable campaign and more pressure at origin.
In Jaén, the figure will rest on a different method. The Junta's provincial delegation has dropped the field teams that used to survey sample groves, four teams of two who visited 126 plots over three weeks, and now works from statistics, past yields, reports from co-operatives, mills and agricultural offices, and large-scale data analysis. The change follows a miss: last year's aforo forecast 475,000 tonnes of oil for Jaén on an expected yield of 20.7%. The yield averaged 19.97%, and the province produced about 86,000 tonnes less than forecast, according to the Jaén trade outlet Oleum Xauen.
ASAJA Córdoba asked for the presentation to be postponed, arguing that the heat and a dry September could leave the fruit with less oil than earlier field data suggest. The government ruled out a delay. Luis Planas, Spain's agriculture minister, called the estimate a legal obligation and said it can be revised during the campaign if autumn rain helps the olives fill out. Arriving at a meeting of EU farm ministers in Brussels on Monday, he said he hopes to publish the national figure this week, once the other regions have sent their data.
Rain arrives, late and patchy
Our crop monitor rates the oil-fill phase as poor in all four Spanish regions it follows. In Andalusia it counts 14 days at or above 38°C since 1 July and 19mm of rain over the same period, and the past 30 days brought 6mm against a seasonal norm of 26mm. The winter had been unusually wet, with 543mm against a norm of 284mm, one reason the spring pointed to a large crop.
This week brings some relief. Temperatures in Andalusia, which reached 40°C last week, are forecast to stay in the low 30s, but the forecasts give Jaén and Córdoba only a few millimetres of rain on Monday, with a second, less certain chance at the weekend.
Rain now can still help fruit that is filling with oil, above all in rainfed groves, but it comes too late for this week's estimates. The heat has already cut the table-olive crop: ASAJA Sevilla now expects 459,000 tonnes in Andalusia, 28% below the 638,000 tonnes Interaceituna first projected, with damaged fruit diverted from table use to the mills.
The campaign turns on Thursday
The 2025/26 campaign ends on Wednesday. Spain held 475,434 tonnes of olive oil at the end of August, according to provisional AICA data, and ASAJA Jaén estimates a carry-over of around 350,000 tonnes if September sales reach 120,000–125,000 tonnes. That would be comfortable rather than tight: the 2024/25 campaign closed on 290,500 tonnes. AICA's September figures, due in mid-October, will settle the number.
The turn of the campaign also changes who has to sell. The pressure on mills and co-operatives to clear old-crop oil before the harvest fades once the new season opens, which is why we have expected prices to firm into it. In its place comes evidence: the oil yields mills report once the harvest starts will be the first hard measure of the crop, well before any consolidated estimate.
Smaller crops in Italy and Tunisia, a larger one in Greece
Italy has no official estimate yet, and the joint Ismea–Unaprol figure has no confirmed date. Federolio expects a crop about 20% below last season's, and Coldiretti Puglia expects falls of around 40% in Foggia and Taranto, with Lecce up about 60% as groves replanted after Xylella come into production. A 20% cut would put Italy at around 240,000–260,000 tonnes, close to the 250,000 tonnes below which we expect Italian packers to turn to Spanish bulk.
Greek industry estimates range from 280,000 to 330,000 tonnes, with 300,000 the most cited figure, against about 233,000 tonnes last season. In Tunisia, the head of the national chamber of olive producers expects about 300,000 tonnes after last season's record 500,000; an official forecast is expected in October.
Elsewhere in the market
Spanish reports in August said Deoleo's main shareholders, the funds CVC and Alchemy, and Italy's Coricelli could sign a binding agreement by the end of September, on an offer valuing the company at around 500M€. That date falls this week. Deoleo has announced no transaction.
Spain's marketing standard for 2026/27, which would let the ministry require mills to withdraw oil from the market in a surplus year, must be adopted by 31 October, and any decision to use it published by 15 November. This week's estimates feed its trigger: our calculation puts the threshold at a national estimate of about 1.58 million tonnes, well above the 1.30 million tonnes Spain produced in 2025/26.
Our read
Extra virgin at 3.37€/kg on our board sits just below the 3.40€/kg we set out as a floor in our price outlook at the start of September. The break is a matter of cents, in a week when buyers have little reason to commit before the estimates. But the floor is now being tested rather than defended at a distance.
This week's figures will decide the next move. An Andalusian estimate below 1.0 million tonnes would support our view that prices firm once the campaign turns. One above 1.1 million tonnes would make a break below 3.40€/kg more likely to hold, at least until mills report actual yields. First estimates have missed in both directions: last season's national figure was about 5% above the crop Spain went on to produce, and Jaén's missed by some 86,000 tonnes. The market will react to the headlines this week; the yields that mills report over the autumn will decide whether the reaction lasts.