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Events/Nationalisation · 1971

Chile nationalises large copper mining

Nationalisation, 11 July 1971, Chile.

What happened

Allende proposed a constitutional amendment on 21 December 1970. Congress passed it on 11 July 1971 and it became law five days later. Law 17,450 declared the large foreign-owned copper companies, mainly Kennecott and Anaconda, wholly state owned. Codelco was formed on 1 April 1976.1,2,3,4

Why it matters

It put Chile's copper under state control.1,2,3,4

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Katanga declares its secession from Congo

    The copper-rich province broke away as an unrecognised state (Wikidata date).5

  2. China agrees to fund TAZARA with US$415 million

    A tripartite agreement signed in Beijing started surveys of the line.6,7,8

  3. Zambia takes 51 percent of the copper mines

    The state became the main owner of the Copperbelt for the next 30 years.9,10,11

  4. Grasberg mine area: Wikidata inception date

    The Papua copper-gold mine is dated to 1972 in Wikidata.12

  5. Benguela Railway closes to Zairian traffic

    Political differences between Zaire and Angola shut the shortest route for Shaba exports.13,14

  6. Roros Mining Town inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.15

  7. Panguna mine halted

    The closure became tied to the Bougainville conflict.16,17

  8. Northparkes block cave air blast

    Northparkes was the first block caving mine in Australia, and the Coroner's findings shaped how block caving is regulated there.18,19

Open the full timeline

Where next

People

Led bySalvador AllendeHis amendment to expropriate the copper firms became law in July 1971.20

Mines

Led toChuquicamataChuquicamata began under US owners in 1915. Chile nationalised its large copper firms in 1971.21Led toEl TenienteEl Teniente began under a US company in 1904. Codelco now runs it.21

Sources

  1. Allende and the nationalisation of Chilean copper (milestone essay) US Department of State, Office of the Historian
  2. Annual Report 2011, History Codelco
  3. Chile: Salvador Allende's leftist regime, 1970-73 US Library of Congress Federal Research Division (via countrystudies.us)
  4. Santiago (item Q2887), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  5. Wikidata item Q1148907 (State of Katanga)
  6. 'Win-win' contested: negotiating the privatisation of Africa's Freedom Railway with the 'Chinese of today' Journal of Modern African Studies 59(1) (Cambridge University Press)
  7. Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries (Working Paper 64) AidData, William & Mary
  8. Wikidata item Q1960 (Dar es Salaam)
  9. Nationalization and Mining: Lessons from Zambia (abstract) OneMine
  10. About ZCCM-IH (history) ZCCM Investments Holdings
  11. Copperbelt Province (item Q1131523), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. Wikidata item Q119297 (Grasberg Mine)
  13. Zaire SNCZ Railway Project, Staff Appraisal Report 1986-ZR (25 April 1979) World Bank
  14. Wikidata item Q223914 (Lobito)
  15. Roros Mining Town and the Circumference UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  16. History: Panguna Mine Bougainville Copper Limited
  17. Panguna mine (item Q17060798), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  18. 1999 Northparkes Air Blast case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  19. Parkes (item Q605513), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  20. Milestones: Allende US Department of State, Office of the Historian
  21. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)

Pictures on this page: Salvador Allende, President of Chile, gtfy.00154.jpg, Bernard Gotfryd (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0; Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Drilling and blasting by Siim Roov, CC BY-SA 4.0.