The company bought the mines at Pyramiden in 1927, and started mining operations at Barentsburg in 1932. This was in part to insure a Russian presence on the archipelago, since the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 insured that all countries to sign the treaty were given equally rights to natural resource exploitation. In 1998 the company closed the mine at Pyramiden, and settlement became a ghost town.
On October 17, 2006Norwegian inspectors detected an underground, smoldering fire in Barentsburg, prompting fears that an open fire might break out1, which would have forced the evacuation of all of Barentsburg for an indefinite period of time, and also caused unknown environmental problems for the entire archipelago. As of November 3, the fire seems to be contained, but there are lingering concerns about the mining company, Arktikugol Trust's lack of equipment to handle the problem2.
