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.
The 10 biggest copper mines in the world. Chile, the world's largest copper producing country, hosts six of the 10 largest copper mines in the world, while the remaining four are located in Peru, Mexico and Indonesia.