Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani

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Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani AS
Company type State owned
Industry Mining
Predecessor Arctic Coal Company
Founded1916
Headquarters,
Key people
Per Andersson (CEO)
Products Bituminous coal
RevenueIncrease2.svg NOK 1,200 million
Increase2.svg NOK 350 million (2009)
Owner Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry
Number of employees
340 (2010)
Website www.snsk.no
The headquarters in central Longyearbyen Longyearbyen SNSK hovedkontor IMG 2716.jpg
The headquarters in central Longyearbyen

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK), or simply Store Norske, is a Norwegian coal mining company based on the Svalbard archipelago. It was formed in 1916, after a Norwegian purchase of the American Arctic Coal Company (ACC).

Contents

The company has 360 employees and operated two coal mines. The larger one was located in the Sveagruva settlement, about 60 km south of Longyearbyen. The Svea Nord longwall mine has an annual output of 2 million tonnes of bituminous coal. A third of it is sold for metallurgical purposes. The managing director of Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani was Per Andersson. The Sveagruva mine closed in 2017.

The Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani has a shipping port at Cape Amsterdam, 15 km from Sveagruva. [1]

In 2021, the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani was ranked no. 81 in the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) that covers 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle. [2]

History

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani was founded in 1916. The Norwegian state, that had owned 99.9 per cent of the shares in the company from 1975, increased its shareholding to 100 per cent in 2015. [3]

Former chief executive officers

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Svalbard, previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it lies about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed in size by Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya and Barentsøya. Bjørnøya or Bear Island is the most southerly island in the territory, situated some 147 km south of Spitsbergen. Other small islands in the group include Hopen to the southeast of Edgeøya, Kongsøya and Svenskøya in the east, and Kvitøya to the northeast. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen, situated in Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen.

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Sveagruva, or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord. When occupied by the workers, it was the third largest settlement in the archipelago but there were no permanent inhabitants. Around 300 workers living in Longyearbyen commuted to Sveagruva for work on a daily or weekly basis. The mine was operated by Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. There is no road to Longyearbyen or any other settlements, so travel is done by air from Svea Airport and coal transport by ship from a port 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) southwest. Sveagruva closed in 2020 and currently has no permanent inhabitants.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Einar Sverdrup</span> Norwegian businessman

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Store Norske may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economy of Svalbard</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Brandal</span>

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The Arctic World Archive (AWA) is a facility for data preservation, located in the Svalbard archipelago on the island of Spitsbergen, Norway, not far from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It contains data of historical and cultural interest from several countries, as well as all of American multinational company GitHub's open source code, in a deeply buried steel vault, with the data storage medium expected to last for 500 to 1,000 years. It is run as a profit-making business by private company Piql and the state-owned coal-mining company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK).

References

  1. Kjersti Sjursen Lien (23 March 2011). "Kullbrann slokket på Svalbard" (in Norwegian Bokmål). NRK . Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  2. Overland, I., Bourmistrov, A., Dale, B., Irlbacher‐Fox, S., Juraev, J., Podgaiskii, E., Stammler, F., Tsani, S., Vakulchuk, R. and Wilson, E.C. 2021. The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index: A method to rank heterogenous extractive industry companies for governance purposes. Business Strategy and the Environment. 30, 1623–1643. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bse.2698
  3. Rui, Ingolf Jarle, ed. (20 February 2018). "Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani AS". Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian). Foreningen Store norske leksikon . Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  4. Får penger til å lete etter Kjøde-kaprernes graver [Receiving money to find the graves of the Kjøde hicackers]
  5. «Vedtar forelegg for korrupsjon» by Rune Endresen, Dagens Næringsliv, 2011-08-27, page 6