Bjørnøen AS is a Norwegian government enterprise that owns all land and some heritage buildings on the uninhabited overseas territory of Bjørnøya (Bear Island). The company was founded as I/S Bjørnøen Kulkompani on June 3, 1918 to perform

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

on Bjørnøya (the Bjørnøen spelling is the Danish-based 19th century Norwegian spelling of Bjørnøya). It was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

in 1932 and became a subsidiary of Kings Bay in 1967. The company is managed by Kings Bay AS. It is owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, who own the company as part of a strategy to claim

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

of the island. Kings Bay is responsible for the administration of the company, financed through the ordinary state subsidies to Kings Bay. The company has the same

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...

and

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

as Kings Bay. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute rents some land for a meteorological station on the island. They are also responsible for coordinating any scientific activities on the island, that (with a few exceptions) became the Bjørnøya

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological o ...

(''Bjørnøya naturreservat'') on August 16, 2002.

References

Government-owned companies of Norway Companies based in Svalbard Mining in Svalbard Real estate companies established in 1918 Bear Island (Norway) Norwegian companies established in 1918 {{Norway-company-stub