"Asentados sobre verdaderos lagos subterráneos de riqueza": Propi edad, fomento y regulación del petróleo en Chile

The foundations of an oil policy were established in Chile between 1914 and 1945. In a first stage, it sought to ratify fiscal domain over presumed deposits existing in the country. In a second stage, to define the State's participation in the importation, processing, distribution, and sale of fuels. Fiscal interference in the activity that had been successfully implemented in other countries in Latin America, was exceptional in Chile's case, considering that legislation preceded the discovery of the first oil deposits and the implementation of necessary infrastructure to produce refined products. The greatest singularity of the oil issue in this period, however, were the peculiar initiatives adopted not to stimulate its use, but to inhibit it, done through the protection that the State gave to the national coal industry to consolidate it as the main energy matrix. This factor was as decisive as the widespread conviction, assumed as an unquestionable truth, of having abundant deposits throughout the country, which encouraged real state speculation on potentially available exploitable land, backed by geological surveys of doubtful validity. With an increasing demand due to its industrial use and the increase of the automotive fleet, the dependence on imported fuels was not accompanied by defined political and economic guidelines in this field. The dependence on hydrocarbon imports, and the consequences of its irregular provision, conditioned the launch of a long-term industrial policy, considering the importance of the energy factor and the limited absorption capacity of the domestic industrial and consumption goods during the study cycle.