Tag Archives: coal crisis
SVEA LOCKED: Final shutdown ceremony ‘marks the closure of over a hundred years of mining’ by Store Norske

More than 30 million tons of coal were extracted over 17 years and there’s still another 10 million tons inside, but the symbolic final step of sealing it off seemingly forever occurred Wednesday as the entrance tunnel at the Svea Nord mine was padlocked during a wistful ceremony featuring speeches and song.
ROUGH JUSTICE: Monica Mæland presided over the shutdown of most of Svalbard’s mining; she’s now the archipelago’s new ‘ruler’ after the collapse of Norway’s government last week

Since her most notable Svalbard moment is a horde of emotionally-charged torch-wielding citizens cornering her in a dark parking lot, Monica Mæland is at the very least well-qualified to cope with tumultuous times after being named “ruler” of the archipelago in the wake of the collapse of Norway’s government last week.
Dead again: Store Norske, after getting ministry to say maybe, gives up on extracting coal at Svea while mines are dismantled

OK, this time the hope of doing any more mining at Svea is truly dead. Honest.
Store Norske says it is giving up on the hoping of extracting coal from the mine while carrying out a government-ordered dismantling of the nearby Lunckefjell mine during the next few years. The decision is oddly timed, occurring shortly after the company finally persuaded skeptical government officials to be open to the possibility after months of effort.
But Administrative Director Jan Morten Ertsaas said the board of directors determined at its most recent meeting the economics and logistics simply weren’t going to work out.
From ‘no’ to ‘maybe’: Mining coal at Svea while dismantling it may be OK, trade ministry official says
Abandon all hope: Svalbard’s 10 biggest stories of 2017

We’re not going to spin it: the year known as 2017 was a disaster – literally.
An avalanche early on shook the community and its leaders to its foundations, climate change inflicted maybe its most humiliating impact on us yet, Barentsburg suffered through two fatal crashes and the hope of some kind of future in terms of Store Norske’s coal mines suffered a death far more painful than even the most pessimistic envisioned.
The (much) higher price of failure: Cost of dismantling Store Norske’s main mines doubles to 1.5B kroner
FINAL CLOSURE: Government recommends permanent shutdown of mining at Svea, Lunckefjell
Briefs from Svalbardposten for the week of Sept. 26, 2017
Dire dozen: Number of people employed in Longyearbyen drops 12 percent due largely to mining, construction losses
Working out: Store Norske avoids possible strike, may possibly strike it rich by reopening mines

Store Norske just finished shutting nearly everything down four months ago and most of the relatively few remaining workers were talking about going on strike. But the labor dispute was resolved quickly last week and a sustained rebound in coal prices is allowing the company putting together a proposal to resume operations at one or both of its two main mines next year.