During the past month at least two bulk carriers calling at Falmouth to load low sulphur fuel oil have had orders to proceed to Spitzbergen to load coal.
Captain Antonios Kamaratos, master of the bulker North Friendship inward from New Orleans laden with coal, told me that after discharging at Rotterdam the ship would proceed inside the Arctic Circle to Sveagruva, Spitzbergen, to load another cargo of coal for Portugal. Sveagruva, in latitude 79 degrees north, has the most productive coal mine in Svalbard producing three million tonnes of coal annually.
The Norwegian government has built a "doomsday vault" on the island to house 10,000 seeds in case of a nuclear war, severe ecological or environmental climate change.
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