Good times for mine 7

Mine 7, the last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine in Spits­ber­gen still acti­ve, has a histo­ry of 52 years – quite impres­si­ve for a coal mine and cer­tain­ly more than most others in Sval­bard. And it looks like 2018 will be the best of the­se 52 years. The amount of coal pro­du­ced is abo­ve expec­ta­ti­on and so are the coal pri­ces on the world mar­ket.

Day plant of mine 7 in Advent­da­len, 12 km sou­the­ast of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The 2018 pro­duc­tion in mine 7 was sche­du­led to amount to 130,000 tons, a quan­ti­ty that was alre­a­dy rea­ched in Octo­ber, as Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted.

But even more important than the good pro­duc­tion is the deve­lo­p­ment of world mar­ket pri­ces. In spring 2018, less than 40 US-$ were paid for a ton of coal. Sin­ce then, the pri­ce has more than dou­bled and has now sta­bi­li­sed bet­ween 95 and a good 100 US-$. This deve­lo­p­ment has hel­ped mine 7 to the best year in its histo­ry, eco­no­mic­al­ly. Good reason for the 40 miners to be hap­py – and to wel­co­me 4 more col­le­agues in their team soon.

The main cus­to­mers for mine 7 coal are the local power plant in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and a Ger­man com­pa­ny cal­led Cla­ri­ant which is buy­ing 60,000 tons per year. For both, the pri­ce is based on the avera­ge pri­ce of the last 3 years, giving both the pro­du­cer, Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kull­kom­pa­ni, and the cus­to­mers plan­ning relia­bi­li­ty.

The coal mines Svea Nord and Lun­ckef­jel­let at Sveagru­va were final­ly clo­sed in 2016. Curr­ent­ly, Store Nor­ske could pro­ba­b­ly make good pro­fit in Svea.

This good eco­no­mic­al deve­lo­p­ment gives the decis­i­on of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment to dis­con­ti­nue mining in Sveagru­va, whe­re a new mine was ful­ly pre­pared in Lun­ckef­jel­let but never put into pro­duc­ti­ve ope­ra­ti­on, an extra bit­ter tas­te, seen from the per­spec­ti­ve of the Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kull­kom­pa­ni and their employees. Many miners lost their jobs after this decis­i­on – which was based on eco­no­mic­al reaso­ning. Ins­tead, lar­ge amounts of money will now be spent on a lar­ge clean-up in Sveagru­va. The recent deve­lo­p­ment is likely to fuel the deba­te about the future of mining in Svea, a dis­cus­sion that the govern­ment in Oslo offi­ci­al­ly has declared as clo­sed.

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