Buy Liberia Natural Rubber Directly From Exporters & Suppliers - Best of 2024 Market Prices

Liberia is Africa’s first rubber producing country. Rubber is the liquid that is secreted by rubber trees. It gets used in the production of a host of products industrial goods like seals and hoses, latex products like gloves and engineering products for shock absorption. Companies like firestone use Liberia natural rubber to manufacture their tires.

Since 1890, the rubber business has been prevalent in Liberia. The Mesoamerican indigenous cultures first used it.

Hevea bransiliensis is Liberia’s rubber tree’s scientific name. The tree can grow to up to 75 or more feet with a 3 feet diameter and it has a straight trunk. Rubberwood colour varies from nearly white to cream. This cream is moderately stiff and heavy and has low shrinkage. 

Liberia has an estimated 600,000 hectares of rubber farms that are overgrown with most of them being between 30 and 60 years. As of 2017, the country had 75,190 tons of annual production quantity. 

Hevea brasiliensis a non-native South American tree. It does well under cultivation and is mainly the commercial natural rubber latex source. It is capable of producing latex for several years if proper care is observed. It takes 25 to 30 years for the full maturity of a rubber tree. The tree thus has a 32-year economic life; 7 are the immature phase, and 25 years is a productive phase. 

Liberia natural rubber grows in fertile soil that is well-drained and weathered. It requires rainfall of around 250cm with even distribution and a minimum of 100 rainy days annually and no strong winds. Also, a climate temperature range of 20°c to 34°c and 80% atmospheric humidity does the plant right. 2000 hours of sunshine annually, translating to 6 hours daily also makes for a healthy plant.

Liberian rubber gets harvested in the form of the latex from the rubber tree. Latex is a sticky and milky colloid. Incisions get made on the bark of the tree, and the fluid is collected into vessels via the tapping method. Tapping occurs in the morning when there is the highest internal tree pressure. The latex is tapped on alternate days and very skillfully so as not to stunt or kill a tree. 

The latex collected is coagulated into lumps that get processed into dry forms for sale. This process involves cleaning and size reduction of the lumps, then drying and baling. The final product is palletized for storage and shipment. The latex can also get refined into rubber ready for commercial processing. Field latex or the collected latex is preserved via ammoniation, which is a process where it gets transferred into containers that are airtight with sieving. Natural rubber, on the other hand, is vulcanized to prevent perishing, improve elasticity and resistance. 

There are controlled clean conditions during the processing of Liberian rubber. It is finally shipped in 20ft ocean containers with smaller containers therein. During transportation, it gets stowed below deck and in clean, dry and dust-free holds with thin fibre nets or ropes for segregation.

Liberia exports are to the US, Australia, EU countries and Japan.

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