As so many other acti­vi­ties in the Arc­tic, most rese­arch acti­vi­ties are very sea­so­nal and lar­ge­ly con­cen­tra­ted in the sum­mer, when working con­di­ti­ons are – well, not easy, but easier than in the polar win­ter, which brings cold, bad wea­ther and dark­ness 24 hours a day.

So far it was lar­ge­ly belie­ved that it would somehow be simi­lar with ani­mal life, lar­ge­ly. Of cour­se, polar bears don’t hiber­na­te and reinde­er have to look for food 12 months a year, and most ani­mals who can move long distance make sure they spend the win­ter some­whe­re more plea­sant. But whoe­ver stays, redu­ces his acti­vi­ty, from move­ment to meta­bo­lism, to a mini­mum. At least accor­ding to com­mon assump­ti­ons, lar­ge­ly based on a lack of bet­ter know­ledge.

Some „light“ has now been shed into this dark­ness during a rese­arch expe­di­ti­on of the Nor­we­gi­an ves­sel Hel­mer Hans­sen (form­er­ly known as the Jan May­en), just a few weeks ago in Kongsfjord. The idea was to make obser­va­tions and coll­ect data to veri­fy or cor­rect tho­se old assump­ti­ons.

In times of a nor­mal day-night-cycle, plank­ton will move towards the sur­face to feed during dark­ness and back into lower, dar­ker water lay­ers at day­ti­me to keep away from pre­da­tors. This regu­lar move­ment bet­ween food-rich sur­face waters and the dark­ness of the deep is the big­gest natu­ral move­ment of bio­mass on Earth. One of the rese­arch ques­ti­ons is if a simi­lar move­ment is still taking place in times of 24 hour dark­ness. Even if it will take time for data to be ana­ly­sed and results to be published, it is alre­a­dy now clear that the­re is much more acti­vi­ty in the water, inclu­ding move­ment, than belie­ved so far.

Pre­da­to­ry fish spe­ci­es are appear­ent­ly able to find food to a hig­her degree than assu­med. This is one result of ana­ly­sis of sto­mach con­tent of fish caught during the expe­di­ti­on with Hel­mer Hans­sen. Fish had prey in their sto­mach which requi­res at least a mini­mum of visu­al per­cep­ti­on to be caught. This indi­ca­tes that the­se fish have some kind of night visi­on, at least to some degree. Eyes of such fish will now be ana­ly­sed to find out how this might work.

Quite hea­vy equip­ment was used for ocea­no­gra­phic work inclu­ding the move­ment of orga­nisms in the water column. As a first result, the assump­ti­on that arc­tic fjords are a slee­py place in the polar night can safe­ly be put asi­de. It is alre­a­dy clear that mari­ne bio­lo­gists who don’t mind cold and dark­ness will have a lot of work to do in the years to come.

Simi­lar inves­ti­ga­ti­ons in the Ant­ar­c­tic have alre­a­dy shown that the­re is much more acti­vi­ty during the polar night in the south polar sea, too.

Ano­ther important rese­arch field is the ques­ti­on of the reac­tion of mari­ne orga­nisms to envi­ron­men­tal chan­ges, ran­ging from low con­cen­tra­ti­ons of oil in the water to cli­ma­te chan­ge which will redu­ce the ice cover in space, thic­k­ness and time and bring hig­her water tem­pe­ra­tures. The­se ques­ti­ons will invol­ve a lot of labo­ra­to­ry work on fish and plank­ton caught ali­ve during months and years to come.

The work on Hel­mer Hans­sen in Kongsfjord was coor­di­na­ted by Nor­we­gi­an sci­en­tists, but invol­ved inter­na­tio­nal rese­ar­chers. Mari­ne bio­lo­gists and spe­cia­lists from all over the world are loo­king for­ward to the results.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

The rus­si­an nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne Kras­no­dar is on fire sin­ce Mon­day mor­ning near Mur­mansk. Kras­no­dar is a Oscar II class boat, simi­lar to the Kursk, and one of the last Rus­si­an sub­ma­ri­nes from the days of the Cold War to be taken out of ser­vice in 2012 for scrap­ping.

Accor­ding to the web­site Barents­ob­ser­ver, scrap­ping a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne starts with rem­oval of spent nuclear fuel. Next is remo­ving the rub­ber cover of the outer hull. This seems to be a dan­ge­rous pro­cess, as fires of the outer rub­ber lay­er during rem­oval have occur­red befo­re more than once. It seems as if the pre­sent fire is a simi­lar case.

The rem­oval of the nuclear reac­tors is the last step of scrap­ping a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne. In other words, the 2 reac­tors are still on board, with con­sidera­ble amounts of radio­ac­ti­ve mate­ri­als.

Kras­no­dar is in the Rus­si­an navy shi­py­ard Ner­pa north of Mur­mansk, only about 100 km from the Nor­we­gi­an bor­der. Despi­te an infor­ma­ti­on exch­an­ge agree­ment, Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties were infor­med by media about the fire befo­re they got any infor­ma­ti­on from offi­ci­al Rus­si­an sources. The Nor­we­gi­an dis­trict gover­nor descri­bes a fire on a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne as a serious issue.

Accor­ding to Rus­si­an infor­ma­ti­on, no radio­ac­ti­vi­ty has escaped so far.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver

The snow mobi­le sea­son has star­ted a few weeks ago in Spits­ber­gen. Some locals start alre­a­dy during the polar night, while most others and most tou­rists start their snow mobi­le excur­si­ons when the light comes back around mid Febru­ary. The sea­son lasts as long as snow and ice make it pos­si­ble to be out, usual­ly into the first days of May or until mid-May if it works well.

Snow mobi­le excur­si­ons make it pos­si­ble to see ama­zing places which are other­wi­se hard to reach, if not impos­si­ble for most, but they bear their spe­ci­fic risks. If you don’t know the local ter­rain and you do not have expe­ri­ence with snow mobi­les, then it is defi­ni­te­ly a good idea to join a gui­ded group. This is also the offi­ci­al recom­men­da­ti­on by the Sys­sel­man­nen (gover­nor).

Some inci­dents of the last cou­ple of weeks:

• In ear­ly March, tou­rists had to be evacua­ted with heli­c­op­ters in two cases after having suf­fe­r­ed frac­tures while fal­ling with their snow mobi­les or, rather, tur­ning them over in uneven ter­rain. Both inci­dents hap­pen­ed near Sas­send­a­len, one in the morai­ne of Rabot­breen and one in Bratt­li­da­len. Both per­sons were mem­bers of gui­ded groups.
• On Tues­day (March 18), a man had to be air­lifted with chest inju­ries after he had dri­ven his snow mobi­le over a steep slo­pe, fal­ling down 6 met­res. Other mem­bers of his group cal­led the res­cue forces with mobi­le pho­nes, but could not pro­vi­de a posi­ti­on as they did not exact­ly know whe­re they were. The group was not gui­ded and did not have GPS or local know­ledge. The inci­dent hap­pen­ed on the coast bet­ween Coles­buk­ta and Barents­burg, a fre­quent­ly used rou­te, but with seve­ral steep slo­pes which are hard to see and serious­ly dan­ge­rous at ina­de­qua­te speed.

In ano­ther case, a per­son went uncon­scious and fell from his snow mobi­le at low speed in Grønfjord, south of Grøn­da­len. First aid was given, but his life could not be saved. The infor­ma­ti­on available seems to indi­ca­te a heart attack or simi­lar medi­cal emer­gen­cy.

The first two cases indi­ca­te that acci­dents can natu­ral­ly also hap­pen while on tour with gui­ded groups. But at least local­ly know­led­geable gui­des will make sure ade­qua­te speed is being used, which is espe­ci­al­ly important in case of ter­rain obs­ta­cles such as steep slo­pes which can be very dif­fi­cult to see. Ade­qua­te speed is of vital importance. Gui­ded groups also have emer­gen­cy equip­ment inclu­ding satel­li­te pho­nes. The mobi­le pho­ne cover in Spits­ber­gen is unre­lia­ble or, rather, inexis­tent over wide are­as.

For safe tours with snow mobi­le and ski, the fol­lo­wing are recom­men­ded or should be con­side­red:

• Ava­lan­che equip­ment (snow sho­vel, ava­lan­che pro­be), unless you stay in cle­ar­ly ava­lan­che-safe ter­rain.
• Local know­ledge or good advice from peo­p­le with local expe­ri­ence. GPS with digi­tal map, spa­re bat­te­ries (!), and prin­ted map and com­pass as a back­up.
• Emer­gen­cy equip­ment. Prepa­re for a pro­lon­ged stay in the field in case of sud­den bad wea­ther or snow mobi­le break­down. Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on equip­ment inde­pen­dent of mobi­le pho­ne grid such as satel­li­te pho­ne and PLB. Tent, slee­ping bag, iso­la­ti­on mat­tress, cam­ping sto­ve and fuel, extra warm clo­thes. Be rea­dy to stay out for at least 24 hours in bad wea­ther.
• Rif­le and other polar bear safe­ty equip­ment.
• Stay with an expe­ri­en­ced per­son or join a gui­ded group if you don’t have expe­ri­ence with snow mobi­les.
• Make sure you know how to deal with minor, com­mon repairs such as exchan­ging the v-belt.
• Snow mobi­les like to break down, espe­ci­al­ly when it is most unwel­co­me. Con­sider this for any trip fur­ther away than you can walk back.
• If you don’t real­ly know the ter­rain: expect ter­rain obs­ta­cles that are dif­fi­cult to see.
• Obser­ve regu­la­ti­ons: you need hel­met and dri­ving licen­se, zero alco­hol and, for lar­ge parts of Spits­ber­gen, insu­rance cover and noti­fi­ca­ti­on to the admi­nis­tra­ti­on in advan­ce. The­re are scoo­ter-free are­as. If you don’t know the regu­la­ti­ons and boun­da­ries, you have to join someone who does, such as a gui­ded group.

This list is not com­ple­te, but it includes some important points.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten, my own expe­ri­ence.

On Sval­bard, sale and pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks are curr­ent­ly regu­la­ted more strict­ly than in main­land Nor­way. Apart from bars and restau­rants, alco­ho­lic drinks are only sold by the govern­men­tal mono­po­list “Nord­po­let” in Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and the­re the allo­wan­ce is limi­t­ed for ever­yo­ne. Locals have a card and tou­rists use their flight ticket to docu­ment purcha­ses. Pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks is com­ple­te­ly pro­hi­bi­ted, both for com­mer­cial pur­po­ses and for pri­va­te con­sump­ti­on.

The­se regu­la­ti­ons are now under recon­side­ra­ti­on and it seems they might soon be histo­ry. It is four years ago that Robert Johan­sen cont­ac­ted the Nor­we­gi­an Health Depart­ment to app­ly for the con­ces­si­on for a bre­wery in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This was not pos­si­ble under given legis­la­ti­on, but for once, aut­ho­ri­ties were wel­ling (after all, it was about beer!) so this tur­ned out to start the pro­cess for a legis­la­ti­ve amend­ment.

Curr­ent­ly the Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties deci­de on the sus­pen­si­on of the regu­la­ti­ons, which date part­ly back as far as 1929. The Depart­ments of Health and Agri­cul­tu­re did alre­a­dy signal that a chan­ge of regu­la­ti­ons is wel­co­me and that no reasons are seen against it. If the legis­la­ti­ve amend­ment comes, the pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks will be made pos­si­ble as a start. Later the quan­ti­ta­ti­ve limi­ta­ti­on for the sale of alco­hol may be abo­lished.

If ever­y­thing pro­ceeds as expec­ted, Robert Johan­sen wants to offer beer “made in Lon­gye­ar­by­en” as soon as sum­mer 2014. His bre­wery will be cal­led Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri AS and will start with a pro­duc­tion of ca. 100.000 liters per year. Sale of rela­ted sou­ve­nirs is also plan­ned. The­re are reac­tions on the expec­ted amend­ment in Barents­burg as well. The­re the Rus­si­an mining com­pa­ny Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol alre­a­dy appli­ed for the con­ces­si­on for a bre­wery – which alre­a­dy exists sin­ce 2013 as part of the mining com­pa­ny.

When the bre­wing in Lon­gye­ar­by­en real­ly starts, Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri will be the nor­t­hern­most bre­wery in the world. Curr­ent­ly Mack Bre­wery in Trom­sø claims this title and it might keep it offi­ci­al­ly as with an annu­al pro­duc­tion of 100.000 liters Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri would be a microb­re­wery accor­ding to Nor­we­gi­an law. This term descri­bes small bre­we­ries with an annu­al pro­duc­tion lower than 600.000 liters. Seve­ral mcrob­re­we­ries are curr­ent­ly plan­ned in Nor­way, north of Trom­sø, for exam­p­le in Ham­mer­fest and in the muni­ci­pa­li­ty of Gam­vik.

The Mack Bre­wery faces the ari­sing com­pe­ti­ti­on posi­tively but as a big bre­wery it clas­si­fies its­elf in ano­ther cate­go­ry. Some years ago for finan­cial reasons the Mack Bre­wery moved its beer pro­duc­tion to Nordk­jos­botn wich is loca­ted south of Trom­sø. Mack nevert­hel­ess claims the title “the world´s nor­t­hern­most bre­wery” becau­se the company´s head­quar­ter is still in Trom­sø.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

The arc­tic drift ice cover usual­ly rea­ches its maxi­mum dis­tri­bu­ti­on in mid March. In 2014, howe­ver, the Febru­ary ext­ent was far behind the nor­mal values. The avera­ge was 14.4 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res or 910,000 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res less than the long-term avera­ge. This puts Febru­ary 2014 on the fourth place in the nega­ti­vensta­tis­tics sin­ce 1979, the begin­ning of sys­te­ma­tic obser­va­tions.

Febru­ary 2005 holds so far the abso­lu­te nega­ti­ve rekord.

In Febru­ary 2014, the ice cover grew with about 14,900 squa­re kilo­me­t­res per day. The cor­re­spon­ding long-term value is, howe­ver, 20,300 squa­re kilo­me­t­res. Short-term fluc­tua­tions against the gro­wing trend in Febru­ary are due to ice move­ment rather than mel­ting.

In Febru­ary 2014, the tem­pe­ra­tures in lar­ge parts of the Arc­tic were 4 to 8 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge.

Source: Snow and Ice Data Cent­re

It is almost 25 years ago that the oil tan­ker Exxon Val­dez hit a reef on the south coast of Alas­ka. The Exxon Val­dez achie­ved sad fame when an alco­ho­lic cap­tain and an over­char­ged third mate stee­red the ship on rocks on March 24, 1989. 37,000 tons of cru­de oil were spil­led and pol­lu­ted 2,000 km of coast­li­ne. The result was and is an eco­lo­gi­cal and eco­no­mic­al dis­as­ter for a who­le regi­on.

Sci­en­tists have now had 25 years to stu­dy the con­se­quen­ces of an oil spill in cold (but not high arc­tic) coas­tal waters. The results are sobering:

• A cle­a­nup of a major spill of cru­de or hea­vy oil is impos­si­ble. Despi­te using resour­ces of about 2 bil­li­on US-$, Exxon has mana­ged to clean up a mere 7 % of the pol­lu­ted coast­li­ne. After the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon cata­stro­phe in the Gulf of Mexi­co, BP has used an astro­no­mic 20 bil­li­on US-$ but “clea­ned” no more than 3 % of coast­li­ne and sur­face waters, lar­ge­ly by using other toxic che­mi­cals. Con­clu­si­on: it is impos­si­ble to clean up a spill of hea­vy or cru­de oil once it has hap­pen­ed.
• Once dama­ge is a fact, it will last a long time, if not fore­ver. In Alas­ka, 32 habi­tats and popu­la­ti­on have been moni­to­red after the Exxon Val­dez dis­as­ter. Out of the­se, only 13 are con­side­red ful­ly “reco­ver­ed” or “very likely reco­ver­ed.” Thou­sands of tons of oil are still in the sedi­ment, pol­lu­ting their sur­roun­dings for a very long time.
• Eco­lo­gi­cal dama­ge can­not be repai­red by man, only by natu­re its­elf. To make this pos­si­ble, eco­sys­tems have to be int­act.
• The risks of oil spills, both the likeli­hood of such an event and the fol­lo­wing impact, is usual­ly unde­re­sti­ma­ted or down­play­ed by aut­ho­ri­ties and indus­tries.
• Pre­ven­ti­on is the only stra­tegy that real­ly makes sen­se. Curr­ent­ly, the indus­try tends to a redu­ce spill risk to “As Low As Reason­ab­ly Prac­ti­ca­ble” (ALARP); ins­tead of “As Low As Pos­si­ble” (ALAP), regard­less of cost” alt­hough “pre­ven­ti­on is cle­ar­ly cost-effec­ti­ve”.
• In cold are­as, the eco­lo­gi­cal impact and tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties increase stron­gly. Any attempt of clean-up in ice waters are high­ly unrea­li­stic to be suc­cessful.

The­se are some of the key results pre­sen­ted by Pro­fes­sor Stei­ner in an artic­le in the Huf­fing­ton Post. On the long term, only abs­ti­nence of oil will pre­vent oil spills. This was one of the demands of the 1989 dis­as­ter in Alas­ka, but the glo­bal need for oil has obvious­ly increased dra­ma­ti­cal­ly sin­ce. Sus­taina­bi­li­ty is not yet a signi­fi­cant fac­tor in decis­i­on making in poli­tics and eco­no­my.

Source: Huf­fing­ton Post

Traf­fic in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is usual­ly quite safe, but Mon­day evening saw a tra­gic acci­dent when a car hit a reinde­er on way 500. The animal’s back was bro­ken, and the poli­ce did accor­din­gly not have a choice but to kill the reinde­er on the spot.

The­re are almost always some reinde­er some­whe­re in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and they are usual­ly not afraid of peo­p­le or moving vehic­les and they don’t watch out for cars befo­re crossing roads. Dri­vers the­r­e­fo­re have to take gre­at care, espe­ci­al­ly at times of dark­ness.

Way 500 is the “main street” bet­ween the cent­re and the river. Most streets in Lon­gye­ar­by­en do not have names but num­bers.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

Most of my polar voy­a­ges in 2014 have alre­a­dy been ful­ly boo­ked for quite some time. If you still want to join in 2014, then you have got the pos­si­bi­li­ty to do so in Sep­tem­ber, focus­sing on natu­ral histo­ry, pho­to­gra­phy and hiking with SV Anti­gua. Click here for more info (Ger­man site, as the trip is Ger­man spea­king).

Now I have also got most of the dates for 2015 fixed. Detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on is yet to come, but as most voy­a­ges will, accor­ding to expe­ri­ence, be ful­ly boo­ked at an ear­ly stage, I do recom­mend to get in touch in case you are inte­res­ted.

The fol­lo­wing trips in Spits­ber­gen are plan­ned for 2015 (they will be Ger­man spea­king, so you should speak a bit if you want to join, but of cour­se it does not have to be your first lan­guage):

• Around Spits­ber­gen with SV Anti­gua, June 30- July 17, 2015.
• Advan­ced Spits­ber­gen: Expe­di­ti­on with SY Arc­ti­ca II, July 19- August 06, 2015.
• West and North Spits­ber­gen with Anti­gua, focus­sing on gla­ciers: Sep­tem­ber 15-25, 2015. Have a look at the pho­tos of a simi­lar voya­ge in 2012.!

Jan May­en: our expe­di­ti­ons to Jan May­en are ful­ly boo­ked more quick­ly than we can adver­ti­se them pro­per­ly, which is quite ama­zing! This is the case both for 2014 and 2015, so if you are inte­res­ted to spend a week on Jan May­en, then we are now loo­king at 2016 and you should get in touch soo­ner rather than later.

We are also plan­ning ano­ther trip into Score­s­by­sund (east Green­land) with SV Ópal, simi­lar to 2013, so have a look at the pho­tos (trip 1 and trip 2) to get an impres­si­on. The plan­ning for ano­ther trip to East Green­land in 2015 is curr­ent­ly still in an ear­lier pha­se.

In Febru­ary, the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re was no less than 15 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge. For weeks, the tem­pe­ra­tures have oscil­la­ted around free­zing. Only the first 10 days, the air was at -10°C or below. Sin­ce then, tem­pe­ra­te Atlan­tic air­mas­ses have moved north to push col­der, arc­tic air­mas­ses fur­ther away.

Meteo­ro­lo­gists have cal­cu­la­ted the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re of Febru­ary in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to be -1.2°C. The long-term avera­ge for Febru­ary is -16.2°C.

It can be assu­med that it is not only the air that is curr­ent­ly war­mer than it used to be, but also the waters around Spits­ber­gen. The ice situa­ti­on seems to con­firm this, as lar­ge parts of the waters east and north of Spits­ber­gen are far more open than they usual­ly are at this time of the year. Even inner bran­ches of the fjords such as Tem­pel­fjord and Bil­lefjord have not yet real­ly fro­zen over so far.

The cur­rent wea­ther fore­cast for the next 10 days does at least not show any tem­pe­ra­tures abo­ve free­zing. While it was not far below zero in Lon­gye­ar­by­en over the weekend, tem­pe­ra­tures at the east coast were said to be near -30°C.

Also in Nor­way, the win­ter has, so far, been far mil­der than it usual­ly is.

Source: NRK

The mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske (SNSK) has ope­ned the new coal mine at Lun­ckef­jel­let, bet­ween Sveagru­va and Reind­a­len, offi­ci­al­ly on Tues­day (Febru­ary 25). Next to miners and com­pa­ny offi­ci­als, the local admin­stra­ti­on from Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Nor­we­gi­an media were pre­sent at Lun­ckef­jel­let. Miner Ter­je Nyland has cut the sym­bo­lic cord to mark the ope­ning. He was deter­mi­ned to do so by lot, rather than an offi­ci­al taking the job, a nice ges­tu­re by the mining com­pa­ny.

It is 14 years ago a new coal mine was ope­ned on Sval­bard for the last time.

The first ton of coal left Lun­ckef­jel­let alre­a­dy on Octo­ber 25 as part of the pre­pa­ra­ti­ons for mining, which are now almost finis­hed. Soon, ever­y­thing is sup­po­sed to be rea­dy for a dai­ly pro­duc­tion of 10,000 tons coal.

SNSK is curr­ent­ly expe­ri­en­cing eco­no­mic­al­ly chal­len­ging years. Pri­ces on the world mar­ket are under pres­su­re, and the risk con­nec­ted to exch­an­ge rate fluc­tua­tions is high. A 1 % loss of the dol­lar rate may cost the com­pa­ny up to more than 1,2 mil­li­on Euro. The last time Store Nor­ske has finis­hed a year with a posi­ti­ve result is seve­ral years ago. A nega­ti­ve result is expec­ted also for 2014, alt­hough the pres­su­re is expec­ted to les­sen due to first bene­fits of the new mine. On the other side, cos­ts for the ope­ning of the Lun­ckef­jel­let mine as well as increased cos­ts at Svea Nord, whe­re pro­duc­tion is get­ting into mar­gi­nal stages, are incre­asing the pres­su­re.

Store Nor­ske has published the fol­lo­wing figu­res for 2013:

• Pro­duc­tion: 1,855,000 tons of coal (2012: 1,229,000)
• Inco­me: 1,32 bil­li­on Nor­we­gi­an Kro­ner (2012: ca. 160 mil­li­on)
• Sales: 2,135.000 tons of coal (2012: 701,000 tons)

The eco­no­mic­al situa­ti­on of the new mine at Lun­ckef­jel­let, plan­ned to be pro­duc­ti­ve for 6-7 years only, is descri­bed as mar­gi­nal by com­pa­ny lea­ders alre­a­dy given cur­rent mar­ket con­di­ti­ons. Store Nor­ske invests in rese­arch which is sup­po­sed to increase sales pri­ces or gene­ra­te addi­tio­nal inco­me from, for exam­p­le, tech­ni­cal upgrading of coal. On the long term, the com­pa­ny has hopes for fur­ther new mines near Sveagru­va (at the moun­tain Ispal­len) and Lon­gye­ar­by­en (Ope­raf­jel­let).

New future mines are poli­ti­cal­ly uncer­tain. Peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are, howe­ver, awa­re that coal mining is still by far the most important sin­gle eco­no­mic­al fac­tor to sup­port local jobs and accor­din­gly the popu­la­ti­on of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Sources: SNSK Bedrifts­nytt, Sval­bard­pos­ten (09/2014)