Abstract
In the early twentieth century, Chileans dreamed of producing and exporting oil, but the reality was that they remained dependent on imports supplied by two large multinational companies, Shell and Esso. As consumption of oil products grew, Chileans’ frustrations increased. During the Depression, a shortage of foreign exchange, continuing devaluation, price controls and lukewarm diplomatic support seriously affected the oil companies, while nationalist criticism of their duopoly intensified. With the support of the Alessandri government, a group of young engineers formed COPEC (the Compañía de Petroleos de Chile) in 1934. Although the multinationals initially opposed COPEC, they proved unable to resist its entry into the market without support from their home governments; eventually the three firms signed a market-sharing agreement in 1937. The multinationals found that ultimately this benefited them by allowing them to establish closer relations with government officials and private-sector businessmen. The Chilean state thus proved able to take advantage of favourable circumstances, control the activities of the foreign companies, and provide openings for local capitalists. The cartel persisted until 1978 when the military government of General Pinochet liberalised the market. In response, Copec became a much more diversified business group with investments in a range of activities.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
América Economía. 2014. Ranking: las 500 mayores empresas de Chile 2014. http://rankings.americaeconomia.com/las-500-mayores-empresas-de-chile-2014/ranking-500-chile_1_50/. Accessed 5 November 2015.
Bucheli, Marcelo. 2010a. Major Trends in the Historiography of the Latin American Oil Industry. Business History Review 84 (2): 339–362.
Bucheli, Marcelo. 2010b. Multinational Corporations, Business Groups, and Economic Nationalism: Standard Oil (New Jersey), Royal Dutch-Shell, and Energy Politics in Chile, 1913–2005. Enterprise and Society 11 (2): 350–399.
Burbach, Roger. 1975. The Chilean Industrial Bourgeoisie and Foreign Capital, 1920–1970. Unpublished PhD thesis, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Chile: Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (several years). Anuario Estadístico. Santiago: Imprenta Nacional.
COPEC. 1950. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1954. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1956. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1961. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1967–1968. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1968–1969. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
COPEC. 1969–1970. Memoria Anual. Santiago: COPEC.
Corbo, Vittorio, and Patricio Meller. 1978. Antecedentes empíricos de los sectores externo e industrial chilenos, 1950–1970. Santiago: CIEPLAN.
De Vylder, Stefan. 1989. Chile 1973–1987: los vaivenes de un modelo. In Economía y política durante el gobierno militar de Chile, 1973–1987, ed. Rigoberto García. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Douyon, Guy A. 1972. Chilean Industrialization Since CORFO. Unpublished PhD thesis, American University, Washington.
Drake, Paul. 1993. Chile, 1930–1958. In Chile Since Independence, ed. Leslie Bethell, 87–128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Durán, Xavier, and Marcelo Bucheli. 2017. Holding Up the Empire: Colombia, American Oil Interests, and the 1921 Urrutia-Thomson Treaty. Journal of Economic History 77 (1): 251–284.
Empresas Copec. 2015. www.empresascopec.cl. Accessed 5 November 2015.
Furnish, Dale B. 1971. Chilean Antitrust Law. American Journal of Comparative Law 19 (3): 464–488.
Harvey, E. Murray. 1929. Economic Conditions in Chile. London: Department of Overseas Trade.
Ibáñez Santa María, Adolfo. 2003. Herido en el ala: Estado, oligarquías y subdesarrollo: Chile, 1924–1960. Santiago: Editorial Biblioteca Americana.
Larson, Henrietta, Evelyn H. Knowlton, and Charles C. Popple. 1971. New Horizons: History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), 1927–1950. New York: Harper and Row.
Mamalakis, Markos. 1976. The Growth and Structure of the Chilean Economy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Miller, Rory M. 1982. Small Business in the Peruvian Oil Industry: Lobitos Oilfields Limited before 1934. Business History Review 56 (3): 400–423.
Miller, Rory M., and Robert Greenhill. 2006. The Fertilizer Commodity Chains: Guano and Nitrate, 1840–1930. In From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000, ed. Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal, and Zephyr Frank, 228–270. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mitcheson, John. 1936. Report on Economic and Commercial Conditions in Chile. London: Department of Overseas Trade.
Monteón, Michael. 1998. Chile and the Great Depression: The Politics of Underdevelopment. Tempe: Arizona State University.
Pack, Arthur J. 1934. Economic Conditions in Chile. London: Department of Overseas Trade.
Palma, J. Gabriel. 1984. Chile, 1914–1935: De economía exportadora a sustitutiva de importaciones. Estudios CIEPLAN 12: 61–88.
Philip, George. 1982. Oil and Politics in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Randall, Stephen J. 1985. United States Foreign Oil Policy Since World War I: For Profit and Security, 1919–1948. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Schneider, Ben Ross. 2004. Business Politics and the State in Twentieth-Century Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Silva, Patricio. 1994. State, Public Technocracy, and Politics in Chile, 1927–1941. Bulletin of Latin American Research 13 (3): 281–297.
Solberg, Carl E. 1985. YPF: The Formative Years of Latin America’s Pioneer State Oil Company, 1922–1939. In Latin American Oil Companies and the Politics of Energy, ed. John Wirth, 51–102. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
United States Federal Trade Commission. 1952. The International Petroleum Cartel. Washington: Government Printing Office.
United States Senate, Special Committee Investigating Petroleum Resources. 1976. American Petroleum Interests in Foreign Countries. New York: Arno Press.
Vaughan Scott, W.F. 1927. Report on the Industrial and Economic Situation in Chile. London: Department of Overseas Trade.
Vergara, Angela. 2014. Chilean Workers and the Great Depression. In The Great Depression in Latin America, ed. Paulo Drinot and Alan Knight, 51–80. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wilkins, Mira. 1974a. The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wilkins, Mira. 1974b. Multinational Oil Companies in South America in the 1920s: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Business History Review 48 (3): 414–446.
World Bank. 1980. Chile: An Economy in Transition. Washington: World Bank.
Yergin, Daniel. 1991. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Free Press.
Zeitlin, Maurice, Linda Ann Ewen, and Richard Earl Ratcliff. 1974. ‘New Princes’ for Old? The Large Corporation and the Capitalist Class in Chile. American Journal of Sociology 80 (1): 87–123.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bucheli, M. (2019). Economic Policy and Foreign Capital in the Creation and Rise of Copec. In: Llorca-Jaña, M., Miller, R., Barría, D. (eds) Capitalists, Business and State-Building in Chile. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14152-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14152-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14151-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14152-3
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)