Iron ore lump premium contracts on the Singapore Exchange saw traded volume at 13.5 mil mt, or 135,000 lots, in 2017, up almost two-and-a-half times from 2016.
The iron ore lump premium contracts are settled against the S&P Global Platts spot lump premium assessment.
In 2016 the total volume traded was 3.9 million mt.
The traded volume of lump premium contracts had jumped since August, when Platts increased the frequency of the physical lump assessment from weekly to daily.
However, month-on-month volumes traded declined 1.6 times, with December seeing 1 million mt of contract volumes traded, compared with 2.6 million mt in November.
Sources said the decrease was due to the December holiday season.
Traded volume for iron ore fines contracts also fell, down 23% month on month, with December volumes at 98.8 million mt, from 121.3 million mt traded in November.
Overall calendar year 2017 volumes traded for iron ore fines stood at 1.6 billion mt, flat on a year ago.
SGX iron ore fines contracts are settled against TSI's Iron Ore CFR China index.
