Today, Singapore is known for its oil refineries, energy commodity trade, and global financial center. But long before oil tanks lined Pulau Bukom, part of the city-state’s wealth was built on the latex of a tree that was not native to Southeast Asia: rubber.
Seeds from the Amazon
The story began in June 1877, when 22 Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) seedlings arrived at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The seedlings were sent through Ceylon after first being smuggled from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to Kew Gardens in England.
Eleven seedlings survived and grew. These trees became the foundation of the rubber plantation industry that later spread across the Malay Peninsula and beyond.
The plants received particular attention from Henry Nicholas Ridley, Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1888 to 1912. Ridley was so active in encouraging planters to grow rubber that he earned the nickname “Mad Ridley”. At the time, rubber was still considered a foreign crop whose profitability had yet to be proven.
Ridley also developed the herringbone tapping technique. It allowed latex to be collected repeatedly without killing the trees, making rubber plantations a viable long-term business.
From Experimental Plots to a Global Supply
The first commercial rubber plantations using Ridley’s seedlings were planted in 1896. Demand for rubber surged as the automotive and tire industries expanded in Europe and the United States.
The Malay Peninsula was well positioned to meet that demand, with Singapore serving as its port and trading center. By 1920, Malaya produced more than half of the world’s rubber supply. An estimated 70 percent of the world’s rubber trees could be traced back to trees propagated from Ridley’s seedlings in Singapore.
One businessman who prospered during the rubber boom was Tan Kah Kee. In 1905, the Chinese-descended entrepreneur bought 500 acres, or about 202 hectares, of forest land in Singapore. He initially used it for pineapple cultivation before switching to rubber.
His business expanded into processing and manufacturing. By the 1920s, it employed more than 10,000 people across cities in East and Southeast Asia, earning him the nickname “Henry Ford of Malaya”.
Singapore Becomes a Rubber Trading Hub
Singapore’s role in the rubber industry extended beyond plantations. The city became a center for processing, grading, and trading rubber produced across the Malay Peninsula.
Raw latex collected from plantations was processed and packaged before being shipped to Singapore. From there, the rubber was traded and shipped to London, where it was sold and distributed to tire factories and rubber-goods manufacturers in Europe and the United States.
This position made Singapore an important center for determining global rubber prices and quality. Trade was no longer confined to where rubber trees were grown. It also took place at the trading desks of Singapore.
When Rubber Began to Lose Its Value
The dominance of natural rubber began to weaken in the late 1950s and early 1960s. From October 1959 to July 1961, the United States General Services Administration released 110,117 long tons of low-priced rubber reserves onto the market. The sales were eventually halted after strong protests from Malaya and other rubber-producing countries.
During the same period, major Western chemical companies increased synthetic rubber production, including butyl rubber, which could replace natural rubber in many applications.
By the early 1960s, global synthetic rubber production had surpassed natural rubber production. Rubber prices then came under pressure, falling to nearly half their value over the course of the decade.
From Rubber to Oil
As the rubber industry began to lose ground, Singapore entered a new chapter. The transition also began at a place that had already played an important role in the city’s oil-trading infrastructure.
Pulau Bukom, south of Singapore, had been used as a kerosene storage depot since the early 20th century. London-based M. Samuel & Co. imported kerosene from Russia and distributed it across Asia through the local agent Syme & Co.
Long before Singapore had a refinery, it had already become one of Southeast Asia’s largest centers for oil storage, blending, packaging, and ship refueling, or bunkering, as well as one of the largest in the world.
On July 26, 1961, Shell Refining Company (Singapore) Limited opened Singapore’s first oil refinery on Pulau Bukom, with an investment of US$30 million at the time. The refinery was officially opened by Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee.
Decades of experience as a center for oil storage and distribution helped lay the foundation for choosing Bukom as the refinery site. From there, Singapore began its shift from a center of rubber trade to a center of oil refining and trading.
A Legacy That Remains
Rubber was no longer a mainstay of Singapore’s economy after independence. But the trading expertise built during the rubber era left a lasting legacy.
In the 1960s, Singapore processed around one-third of the world’s natural rubber supply. That trading legacy later continued through the Singapore Commodity Exchange, which was acquired by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in 2008.
According to Enterprise Singapore, rubber futures contracts on SGX now account for around 90 percent of the world’s seaborne rubber derivatives market and serve as a price benchmark for international market participants, from rubber farmers in Thailand to tire manufacturers such as Michelin.
Singapore itself has long ceased to be a major rubber producer. Its role as a commodity trading center, however, has remained. In 2024, the value of international commodity transactions executed through Singapore reached US$1.9 trillion, up 40 percent from a decade earlier.
From rubber to oil, the commodity changed. Singapore’s ability to turn its geographic position and trading infrastructure into a center for global commodity trade remained an important part of its story.
