Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries

The CIPEC (from French: Conseil des pays intergovernmental exportateurs de cuivre; German: International Association Copper Exporting Countries ) was from 1967 to 1988, an international organization whose aims were forming a cartel to influence the price of copper and the deepening of mutual cooperation.

Foundation

In the 1960s a number of countries nationalized the copper mining industry. In particular, the nationalization in Chile and Zambia, which have the largest known copper reserves, new opportunities for international cooperation revealed. In November 1966, the Chilean President Frei and the Zambian President Kaunda met in Santiago initial talks. In June 1967, the CIPEC was founded on the model of OPEC, in Lusaka. In addition to Chile and Zambia were among Peru and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the founding members. Countries whose main source of income is not primarily derived from copper mining, such as the USA, were deliberately kept out of the CIPEC.

Importance

Later even 15 percent - mainly driven by Rio Tinto, the CIPEC decided in 1974 to promote to slow by 10 percent. This happened against the background of the oil crisis and the funds generated by OPEC profits. The CIPEC 1975 were Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Yugoslavia at. This controlled the CIPEC about 30 percent of the world's refined copper and about 50 percent of all known copper reserves. However, since the own production quotas were poorly implemented, the production quotas were decided in crisis years and have enough copper in the "free market " was the CIPEC could never take such a big impact on the price of copper as OPEC on crude oil prices. For Chile, the policy of the CIPEC was even counterproductive, since it was strongly dependent on revenue from exports. Gradually, therefore, the importance of CIPEC waned until it was disbanded in 1988. Since then, no new copper cartel has formed more.

Members

The founding members were:

  • Chile
  • Peru
  • Democratic Republic of Congo
  • Zambia

1975 joined the CIPEC at:

  • Australia
  • Indonesia
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Yugoslavia
Eduardo Frei Montalva Rio Tinto Group Copperbelt
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