Ethyl oleate is used by compounding pharmacies as a vehicle for intramuscular drug delivery, in some cases to prepare the daily doses of progesterone in support of pregnancy.

Studies that document the safe use of ethyl oleate in pregnancy for both the mother and the fetus have never been performed.

[2] Ethyl oleate is used as a solvent for pharmaceutical drug preparations involving lipophilic substances such as steroids.

Louis Bouveault used ethyl oleate to demonstrate Bouveault–Blanc reduction, producing oleyl alcohol and ethanol,[4] a method which was subsequently refined and published in Organic Syntheses.

Some research literature implicates FAEEs such as ethyl oleate as the toxic mediators of ethanol in the body (pancreas, liver, heart, and brain).