Mine 7 to be clo­sed in July. Or not?

Coal is still mined at Mine 7 in Advent­da­len, near Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Mine 7 is the last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine in Sval­bard still in ope­ra­ti­on.

But not for much lon­ger: the mine is due to clo­se this sum­mer, with pro­duc­tion due to cea­se towards the end of June.

Many in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are not hap­py about this, and wha­te­ver one’s views on coal mining in gene­ral, the­re is no doubt that the loss of seve­ral dozen well-paid indus­tri­al jobs is signi­fi­cant for a town of around 2500 inha­bi­tants. Various sup­pli­ers are also expec­ting a loss of busi­ness.

Sur­face instal­la­ti­ons of mine 7.

The “news” has now rea­ched the poli­ti­cal are­na in Oslo. Even Emi­lie Enger Mehl, who as Minis­ter of Jus­ti­ce and and such respon­si­ble for Norway’s Sval­bard poli­cy play­ed a decisi­ve role in the decis­i­on to clo­se Mine 7, has now spo­ken out accor­din­gly, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten. The only pro­blem is that Mehl is no lon­ger a minis­ter. The loss of office obvious­ly led to a chan­ge of opi­ni­on in Mehl’s case.

The end of mine 7 is not just a poli­ti­cal issue, howe­ver: the coal reser­ves will soon be exhaus­ted and the mine would not be able to ope­ra­te for much lon­ger. If Nor­way wants to con­ti­nue coal mining in Sval­bard, a com­ple­te­ly new mine would have to be deve­lo­ped, which would also mean exten­ding the road into so far untouch­ed are­as. Years ago, coal depo­sits were explo­red on the moun­tain Bas­sen on the north side of Advent­da­len (Bas­sen is part of Ope­raf­jel­let) with the idea of deve­lo­ping “Mine 8” the­re.

The moun­tain Bas­sen in Ope­raf­jel­let was once inten­ded to beco­me “Mine 8”.

Howe­ver, this never mate­ria­li­sed and it seems poli­ti­cal­ly unli­kely that it will ever hap­pen. And so Nor­we­gi­an coal mining in Spits­ber­gen will pro­ba­b­ly be histo­ry by the end of this sum­mer.

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