Palm Oil Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992
Palm oil price history in US dollars per metric ton (Malaysia, physical price), World Bank Pink Sheet, monthly since 1992. Covers the 2008 boom, the 2018 low, and the record March 2022 spike. CSV and Excel.
Palm oil is the world’s most consumed and most traded edible oil, used across food, cosmetics, and biodiesel. Indonesia and Malaysia together supply roughly 85% of global output. It competes directly with soybean, sunflower, and rapeseed oil. This dataset reproduces the World Bank Pink Sheet palm oil price, a monthly average in US dollars per metric ton since 1992. It is a physical quote for Malaysian palm oil whose grade and delivery terms changed over time (crude palm oil, DAP, since February 2025).
Dataset: Palm Oil Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-10-01
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
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Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0
Macro Takeaway
Palm oil is the swing vegetable oil (the cheapest and most abundant), so its price is set jointly by the broader edible-oils complex (above all soybean oil), by biodiesel mandates in Indonesia and Malaysia, and by crude oil through the biofuel link.
In 2022 several supply shocks hit the edible-oils market at once. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cut Black Sea sunflower oil and South American drought hit soybean oil, driving palm oil to an all-time high of about $1,780 per ton in March 2022. Indonesia’s April-May 2022 export ban kept prices above $1,680 until May. The price then halved to about $890 by October 2022. Since then it has moved between about $800 and $1,190 per ton, a period of rising biodiesel blending mandates in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Dataset Overview
| Indicator | Palm oil, Malaysia: monthly average physical price (1992–2026) |
|---|---|
| Geography | Indonesia and Malaysia (around 85% of world supply), Thailand, Colombia |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Period | 1992–2026 |
| Variables | Date, palm oil price (US dollars per metric ton) |
| Format | CSV, Excel (XLSX) |
| Sources | World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Palm oil” |
| Licence | World Bank data under CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Terms of Use for Datasets); Eco3min grants no licence of its own |
| Last updated | 2026-10-01 |
Dataset Variables
The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
date | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) | Observation month (first day of month) |
palm_oil_price | Float | Palm oil price (World Bank Pink Sheet, Malaysia, physical price), monthly average, US dollars per metric ton |
Column names match the CSV headers exactly.
Download the Complete Dataset
The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats: monthly observations covering more than three decades.
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet
The underlying series is the “Palm oil” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.
The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per metric ton, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.
Direct CSV Access: Eco3min Structured Dataset
https://eco3min.fr/dataset/palm-oil-price.csv
This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.
Using the Dataset in Python
import pandas as pd url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/palm-oil-price.csv" df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"]) print(df.head()) print(df["palm_oil_price"].describe()) df.plot(x="date", y="palm_oil_price", title="Palm Oil Price", legend=False)
Using the Dataset in R
library(readr) url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/palm-oil-price.csv" df <- read_csv(url) head(df) summary(df$palm_oil_price)
Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.
Methodology
The World Bank reports the palm oil price in US dollars per metric ton for Malaysian palm oil. Its grade and delivery terms changed over time:
- From February 2025: crude palm oil, DAP.
- November 2024 to January 2025: 5% bulk, CIF North West Europe.
- January 2021 to October 2024: RBD (refined, bleached and deodorised), FOB Malaysian ports.
- December 2001 to December 2020: RBD, CIF Rotterdam.
- Before December 2001: Malaysian 5% bulk, CIF North West Europe, nearest forward.
Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.
An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.
Data Quality & Provider Notes
The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.
- Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
- Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
- Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
- Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ (median gap of about 14% over the common period, much larger in some months).
- Changes of grade and delivery basis. The quote changed in December 2001, January 2021, November 2024 and February 2025, between crude and refined (RBD) oil and between CIF Europe, FOB Malaysia and DAP terms (see Methodology). Levels on either side of those dates are not strictly like for like. The workbook notes also flag some recent oilseed months as World Bank estimates, replaced later by source data.
- Alternative sources. Bursa Malaysia crude palm oil futures give daily prices in Malaysian ringgit. The World Bank compiles its oilseed quotes from commercial price reporters and the US Department of Agriculture.
Common Pitfalls When Using This Series
- Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
- Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
- Unit confusion. This series is in US dollars per metric ton; Bursa Malaysia futures are quoted in Malaysian ringgit per tonne, so headline ringgit prices are not directly comparable without the exchange rate.
Historical Regimes
1992–2005: Plantation expansion. Rapid Indonesian and Malaysian expansion kept prices moderate: the monthly median was about $460 per ton, with a trough of about $230 in May 2001 and a peak of about $720 in December 1994.
2006–2008: Commodity boom. Biofuel demand and the broad commodity boom lifted palm oil to a then-record of about $1,380 per ton in March 2008, before the financial crisis cut it to about $580 in November 2008.
2009–2013: Recovery. Chinese and Indian demand and biodiesel mandates carried prices back to about $1,330 per ton in February 2011, before an easing to about $820 in August 2013.
2014–2019: Surplus and EU pressure. Oversupply and EU deforestation concerns pushed prices down to about $540 per ton in December 2018, the lowest since 2006.
2020–2021: Pandemic rebound. Malaysian labour shortages and firm biodiesel demand more than doubled prices, from about $580 per ton in May 2020 to about $1,340 in November 2021.
2022: All-time record. The Ukraine war and South American drought drove palm oil to an all-time high of about $1,780 per ton in March 2022. Indonesia’s April-May export ban followed, and the price halved to about $890 by October 2022.
2023–2026: Correction and biodiesel support. Easing edible-oil tightness pulled prices down to about $800 per ton in October 2023. Higher Indonesian and Malaysian biodiesel mandates then coincided with a recovery to about $1,190 in December 2024. The price stood at about $1,120 in August 2026.
Related Macroeconomic Datasets
- Soybeans Price: the main competing oilseed and vegetable oil
- WTI Crude Oil Price: the energy link via biodiesel economics
- Rubber Price: a fellow Southeast Asian plantation commodity
- Cotton Price: another tropical plantation crop
- Sugar Price: a fellow food and biofuel feedstock
Commodity Price Hub
This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.
Explore the Commodity Price Hub
Sources
- World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Palm oil” (CC BY 4.0)
- Malaysian palm oil physical quotations (crude palm oil DAP since February 2025, earlier RBD and 5% bulk grades), the market basis of the Pink Sheet series
Dataset Reference
Last updated — 5 November 2026
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Source terms. World Bank data (Commodity Price Data, The Pink Sheet), licensed by the World Bank under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) with the additional terms of the World Bank Terms of Use for Datasets (https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/legal/terms-conditions/datasets). Attribution to the World Bank is required and must be passed on with any redistribution. Eco3min grants no licence of its own on these data, and no endorsement by the World Bank is implied. Full terms.