Résumé
In a situation of global health crisis still present in 2021, the year was marked by a surprising stability of natural rubber prices in a context of rising raw materials in general (including oil), but also of synthetic elastomers such as styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR)—the main competitor of natural rubber—with an increase of 58% between January and October 2021. Except for the month of January 2021 when the Standard Malaysian Rubber (SMR) 20 FOB Kuala Lumpur price caught up with its December 2020 backwardation, the price of natural rubber (SMR 20 FOB Kuala Lumpur) remained stable throughout the year - in the range of $1,700/t for SMR 20 FOB Kuala Lumpur with small swings in the range of ±$100/t, or ±6%.