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.
Manufacture of copper. About 80% of the world's primary copper comes from ores in which copper is present as a sulfide mineral, for example, chalcopyrite (CuFeS 2) (the most abundant copper ore), bornite (Cu 5 FeS 4) and chalcocite (Cu 2 S). These ores contain typically only about 0.5-2% copper.