Blast from the Past: When Chile nationalized copper

Chile’s 1971 move to nationalize copper reshaped Latin American mining and still reverberates through global supply.

The Northern Miner tracked the crisis before and after the takeover. Even before Congress approved the measure, President Salvador Allende declared a state of emergency after former interior minister Edmundo Pérez Zujovic was machine-gunned in Santiago.

State control of mines held by Kennecott Copper and Anaconda quickly set off compensation fights over assets worth billions in today’s dollars. The policy won support in Chile but slowed exports, deepened isolation and fed the turmoil that ended in Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup.

Pinochet later settled some disputes with foreign miners but kept copper in state hands. Chile formed Codelco in 1976, and the company still runs the country’s biggest mines and anchors world copper supply.