Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Sveagruva
Summary
Sveagruva (Swedish Mine), or simply Svea, was a mining settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying at the head of Van Mijenfjord.
It was the third largest settlement in the archipelago (after Longyearbyen and Barentsburg). 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 southwest. Sveagruva closed in 2017 and currently has no permanent inhabitants.
The town was established in 1917 by Swedes. It was thereafter destroyed in 1944, but quickly re-established after World War II. The mining activity ceased in 1949, and was not re-established until 1970. Mining was suspended for a short period in 1987. In the 1990s, the town nearly vanished, as mines in Longyearbyen proved more productive and accessible. In 2005, a mine fire erupted, lasting uninterrupted for more than five weeks, and causing 700 million Norwegian kroner worth of damage.
Sveagruva held the most productive coal mine of Svalbard, the Svea Nord longwall mine. Opened in 2001, the mine produced up to 4 million metric tons of coal annually, making it one of the largest underground coal mines in Europe. The mine closed in March 2020.
Sveagruva closed in 2017 due to economic conditions.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.