Calculating Mine Proposal: Silver, Copper, and Gangue Production and Profits

[Scott29]

I'm in year 8 and have a maths question for science. I have been given some information to go off.

We have a task where we have to 'plan' a new mine proposal. I am doing accounting. I need help with 2 questions.

- How much silver, copper, and gangue will be produced
- How much money will we make (silver, copper, and the total)

There is 2.5kg of copper per tonne of ore, and 850,000,000 tonnes or ore. There is also .5g of silver per tonne, and producing 1 tonne of copper will produce 98 tonnes of gangue.

The main thing i am stuck on is the 'per'. Does that mean times or divide. No matter who i ask i keep getting different answers. I thinks its times. Also, i have figured it out about 8 times, and got about 5 different answers because i keep thinking, "maybe this is how your supposed to do it".

To get the prices, it is $4.04 per pound. You will need a pound to kilogram/tonne calculator seeing as i live in a country that doesn't use pounds.

Thanks heaps, I know its a lot but I'm so stuck and this is my one job so i don't want to stuff it up.

 

[castor28]

I'm in year 8 and have a maths question for science. I have been given some information to go off.

We have a task where we have to 'plan' a new mine proposal. I am doing accounting. I need help with 2 questions.

- How much silver, copper, and gangue will be produced
- How much money will we make (silver, copper, and the total)

There is 2.5kg of copper per tonne of ore, and 850,000,000 tonnes or ore. There is also .5g of silver per tonne, and producing 1 tonne of copper will produce 98 tonnes of gangue.

The main thing i am stuck on is the 'per'. Does that mean times or divide. No matter who i ask i keep getting different answers. I thinks its times. Also, i have figured it out about 8 times, and got about 5 different answers because i keep thinking, "maybe this is how your supposed to do it".

To get the prices, it is $4.04 per pound. You will need a pound to kilogram/tonne calculator seeing as i live in a country that doesn't use pounds.

Thanks heaps, I know its a lot but I'm so stuck and this is my one job so i don't want to stuff it up.

Hi Scott29,

"per" means that each tonne of ore produces 2.5kg of copper and 0.5g of silver. To get the total amount of copper (in kg) and silver (in grams), you have to multiply these figures by the number of tonnes of ore.

One pound (lb.) is 0.453592 kg.

Does this answer your question ? Pleas feel free to write back if you need further help.