Kinetic peculiarities of cis methyl oleate hydrogenation over Pd/C, Ru/C, Rh/C, Pt/C and Ir/C were studied. Liquid phase hydrogenation was carried out at temperature 298 <= T <= 373 K and under hydrogen pressure within 1-10 bar using n-octane as a solvent. GLC and FTIR techniques were employed to characterize the reaction products. The effects of the catalyst amount, cis methyl oleate concentration, reaction temperature, and hydrogen pressure on the rates of methyl oleate hydrogenation and cis-trans isomerization were investigated. A simple reaction scheme involving cis methyl oleate hydrogenation and cis-trans isomerization was proposed for kinetic modeling. A good agreement was obtained between the calculated kinetic curves and the experimental data for the isomerization and hydrogenation of methyl oleate. It was shown that the second-row metals (Ru, Rh, Pd) display high activity in isomerization whereas the third-row metals (Ir, Pt) exhibit minor activity. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.