The oud market
Rare prices, but above all difficult comparisons.
Origin, grade, purity, yield and seller reputation create enormous differences. This chapter provides dated benchmarks and explains why they are not an official commodity quotation.
The oud market
Indicative oud oil price
Switch between annual averages and quarterly observations. Values are US dollars per tola.
A benchmark, not a quotation.
The 2013-2018 series is visually reconstructed from the former Oud Oil Trading chart supplied to the project. It is unaudited, not inflation-adjusted and cannot control for changes in grade or origin.
Wood chips
The early 2000s marked a sharp acceleration.
TRAFFIC recorded Malaysian top-grade wood at about MYR 4,000 per kilogram in 1999, MYR 5,000 in 2003, MYR 8,000 in 2004 and MYR 10,000 in 2005. Vietnamese grade 1 and 2 material traded around USD 2,000-3,500 per kilogram near 2000.
These figures already show that agarwood never had a single market price. Species, resin content, cut, origin and buyer access create separate markets.
MYR 4,000/kg in Malaysia
MYR 10,000/kg in Malaysia
USD 2,000-3,500/kg in Vietnam
Oil and tola
Distillation multiplies both value and uncertainty.
Around 2000, high-quality commissioned oil in Vietnam and Cambodia was quoted near USD 15,000 per litre. In Kuala Lumpur, the highest quality recorded in 2006 reached roughly MYR 800 per 11.7-gram tola.
Recent scientific literature notes that average-quality oil can reach USD 500 per tola. Exceptional wild oils may be advertised much higher, but purity, actual volume, species and batch identity must be verified before comparison.
Resin content and wood quality
Soaking, still, fractions and ageing
Origin, analysis and distiller identity
Reading forecasts
Growth scenarios are not measured trade flows.
Commercial reports use different definitions: some cover oil only, others include chips, incense, perfume, extracts or finished cosmetics. Their market-size estimates can therefore differ by several orders of magnitude.
The robust directional signals are broader demand for natural luxury, expansion of niche fragrance and wellbeing, more plantation supply, tighter traceability expectations and continued premium demand in the Gulf and East Asia. Exact forecasts should always retain publisher, base year and product perimeter.
Luxury, ritual, fragrance and wellbeing
Plantations and induction technology
CITES, authenticity and grading
Scientific and institutional sources