Vegetable oil production worldwide 2000/01-2023/24

In 2022/23, vegetable oil production amounted to some 210.3 million metric tons worldwide and was forecast to increase to over 217 million metric tons in the 2023/24 marketing year. 

Vegetable oil production

Vegetable oils are fats that have been extracted from plants. The extraction of oils from plants has been a common practice in several cultures since early times. In recent years, excavators found evidence of olive oil production in Israel and dated it back to 8,000 years ago. Vegetable oil is used for cooking, as pet food additives, as fuel and as an ingredient for soaps, candles, perfumes and other personal care products.

Over the last several years, the global production of vegetable oils has experienced constant growth. Since 2007, annual vegetable oil production had increased by more or less five percent, however slowed down in 2012/2013. Between 2016 and 2017, approximately 185.78 million metric tons of coconut, cottonseed, olive, palm, palm kernel, peanut, rapeseed, soybean and sunflower seed oils were manufactured all over the world—a 6.28 percent raise from the previous period.

Palm oil was the leading vegetable oil category in terms of production volume and consumption. In 2021/2022, worldwide palm oil production yielded roughly 73.8 million metric tons. According to FAOSTAT, Asia accounted for around 89 percent of the global production of palm oil in 2013. Indonesia and Malaysia were the top palm oil producers that year, followed by Thailand, Nigeria and Colombia. As of 2021, Sime Darby Bhd and IOI were tied as the number top palm oil companies in the world, based on a market capitalization of 2.8 billion U.S. dollars.