One of the early tasks of CORFO was to "solve the old problem of the ironworks". In doing so it injected capital and granted loans to the Compañía Electro-Siderúrgica e Industrial de Valdivia, the inheritor to the failed Altos Hornos y Acerías de Corral. In 1947 CORFO begun the construction of a large steel mill in Huachipato near Concepción which in 1950 begun operating as Compañía de Acero del Pacífico. Another division of CORFO engaged in oil exploration making a breakthrough discovery in northern Tierra del Fuego in 1945. Extraction began in 1949 and in 1950 the state created ENAP (National Petroleum Company) to deal with oil extraction and prospection. Until 1960 most oil extracted in Chile came from Tierra del Fuego.