Rubber Price History: Monthly Global Natural Rubber Price Since 1992

Natural rubber, tapped from trees across Southeast Asia, is essential to tyres and industrial goods. Because it competes with petroleum-derived synthetic rubber, its price tracks crude oil as well as plantation supply. This dataset tracks the World Bank Pink Sheet price of ribbed smoked sheet rubber (RSS3 grade, Singapore exchange nearby contract since 2004), in US dollars per kilogram, with continuous monthly coverage since 1992. Thailand and Indonesia are the dominant producers.

Dataset: Rubber 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.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

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 “Rubber, RSS3” 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 kilogram, 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/rubber-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/rubber-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["rubber_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="rubber_price", title="Rubber Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/rubber-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$rubber_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank’s Pink Sheet reports the price of RSS3 natural rubber on the nearby contract of the Singapore exchange (SGX, formerly SICOM), in US dollars per kilogram. The quote has been RSS3 on SICOM since 2004; from 2000 to 2003 it was Singapore RSS1, and before 2000 Malaysia RSS1.

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 in US cents per pound; it now reproduces the Pink Sheet column in US dollars per kilogram. Values downloaded before and after the switch are not comparable without conversion (1 US dollar per kilogram equals about 45.36 US cents per pound).
• Alternative sources. Futures in Singapore, Osaka and Shanghai give daily quotes. The Pink Sheet also publishes a TSR20 rubber price, which replaced RSS3 in the World Bank’s Other Raw Materials index from 2018 and sits at a different level.
• Grade and venue changes. The early years are a close but not identical grade (RSS1, quoted in Malaysia before 2000 and in Singapore from 2000 to 2003). Eco3min reproduces the World Bank column without adjusting across these switches.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Unit confusion. This series is in US dollars per kilogram. Exchange quotes (SGX, Osaka, Shanghai) use their own currencies and units, and older references in US cents per pound need conversion (1 kg ≈ 2.205 lb).

Historical Regimes

1992–2001: Lows and the Asian crisis. After a peak of 1.84 USD/kg in April 1995, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and ample supply pushed the price down to 0.49 in December 2001, the lowest in the file.

2002–2008: Oil-linked rise. Rising crude oil (lifting synthetic-rubber costs) and Chinese demand carried rubber from 0.57 USD/kg in January 2002 to 3.22 in June 2008.

2009–2011: Record peak. Post-crisis Chinese tyre demand and Thai flooding drove rubber from 1.43 USD/kg in March 2009 to a record 6.26 in February 2011.

2012–2020: Decade-long decline. Expanding ASEAN supply, slowing Chinese growth, and cheaper synthetics dragged the annual average down from 4.82 USD/kg in 2011 to 1.73 in 2020, about 11% a year. The monthly low was 1.23 in January 2016.

2021–2023: Brief rebound, then new lows. Post-pandemic auto demand and high freight costs lifted the price to 2.37 USD/kg in March 2021, but it slid to 1.43 in November 2022 and stayed below 1.70 through 2023.

2024–2026: Multi-year-high rally. Drought and flooding cut Thai and Indonesian output, leaf-fall disease spread, and the EU Deforestation Regulation tightened supply, pushing rubber to 2.65 USD/kg in September 2024, the highest since February 2017. After a dip to 2.00 in October 2025, it reached 2.86 in June 2026, the highest since May 2013.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

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 “Rubber, RSS3” (CC BY 4.0)
• Singapore Exchange (SGX, formerly SICOM) RSS3 nearby contract, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Rubber Price: Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/rubber-price-history-dataset/