Differentiate fixed costs and variable costs. 1  Total cost is the sum of fixed and variable costs.  Variable costs change according to the quantity of a good or service being produced. The amount of materials and labor that is needed for to make a good increases in direct proportion to the number of goods produced.
Chilean copper-mining company Antofagasta produced 370,000 tonnes of copper in 2016, a decrease from 2015âs total of 370,000 tonnes. In the first half of 2017, the company produced 346,300 tonnes of copper, a 7.1-percent increase over the same period in 2016.
Copper is mined mostly in open pit mines, such as those found in Utah, New Mexico, and Chile. Chile produces the largest percentage of the world's copper with nearly 33% of the world's export. Copper is also found in the U.S., Indonesia, and Peru. Although copper has been used for thousands of years about 95% of all extracted copper was mined within the last hundred. In addition to the many mines found all over the world much of the copper we use has been recycled.