Svea Nord closes

The last coal mine at Sveagruva, Svea Nord, was closed and locked on 4 March 2020. Sveagruva lies innermost in Van Mijenfjorden on Spitsbergen, about 60 km south-east of Longyearbyen, according to the Store norske leksikon entry on the mining company. NRK reported that day that the mine was shut and locked, and that mining in Svea had gone on for 103 years.

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (the state-owned mining company) said in its own release of 4 March 2020 that the closure ended more than a hundred years of mining in Svea. The release says Svea Nord had been in operation since 1999 and that the last coal came out on 8 April 2016, with about 32 million tonnes taken out. One NRK report from the day of the closure instead gives 2001 as the year the mine opened, and calls it the largest coal mine ever operated on Svalbard. The lexicon also puts total output from Sveagruva at about 32 million tonnes.

The cause was a political decision. Store Norske says the Storting decided in connection with the 2018 state budget to end mining in Svea and Lunckefjell. NRK wrote on 4 March 2020 that the decision came two years earlier and was made because of poor profitability. High North News gives 2017 for the decision, and the lexicon says the two mines were decided closed in 2016. NRK adds that the Lunckefjell mine, opened in 2014 at a cost of about NOK 1.2 billion, never reached full production, and that about 10 million tonnes of coal were thought to remain in the mines.

On the day of closure the company's chief executive, Jan Morten Ertsaas, said the closing of the workplace of many employees was the most sorrowful part. According to the company release, he said the thoughts of the day went to all the workers who had made an effort in the community, and especially to those who had lost their lives over the years. He said Svea Nord had produced more coal than any other mine in the company's history. The release says the camp had about 300 beds and an airport with regular flights to Longyearbyen, and that at most about 400 people worked in Svea. NRK reported that Gruve 7, which supplies coal to the power plant in Longyearbyen, was the only mine still running apart from Russian mining in Barentsburg.

The clean-up followed at once. Gudmund Løvli, head of the environmental project for Svea and Lunckefjell, told NRK that about 60 buildings, all the roads between the mines and the settlement, and the quays were to be removed. Some soil in the mining areas was polluted, he said, and there had been diesel spills; whether the ground held oil pollution was still to be checked. The estimate in March 2020 was NOK 2.5 billion; in July 2020 Store Norske cut it to NOK 2.2 billion and planned completion in 2023. High North News reported in March 2021 that a camp with 87 beds had been set up at Cape Amsterdam and that the contractor AF Decom was pulling down buildings.

NRK reported in August 2024 that the final report had been handed to the climate and environment minister. The project had taken six years and cost about NOK 1.6 billion. Mines were emptied and their entrances sealed, and the airport, power plant, deep-water quay and nearly 60 buildings were removed. Only three protected pre-war buildings remain. The lexicon says the clean-up has set Sveagruva back to a near natural state.