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.
(Rio Tinto: 100 per cent). Kennecott Utah Copper (KUC) operates the Bingham Canyon mine, Copperton concentrator and Garfield smelter and refinery complex, near Salt Lake City, US. KUC is a polymetallic mine, producing copper, gold, molybdenum and silver.As the second largest copper producer in the US, KUC supplies more than 13 per cent of the nation's annual refined copper requirements and it employs approximately 1,800 people.s the second largest copper producer in the US, KUC supplies more than 13 per cent of the nation's annual refined copper requirements and it employs approximately 1,800 people.