Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: June 25, 2026

 

A mining case interview is a consulting case built around a mining or metals company, where you analyze a decision like expanding a mine, cutting costs, or buying new equipment using the industry's economic levers of ore grade, recovery, and commodity price. This guide covers how mining cases work, the industry economics you need to know, the case types you will face, and a step-by-step way to structure your answer.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

A mining case is a normal case interview wearing different clothes: the structure stays the same, but revenue and cost are driven by grade, recovery, commodity price, and cost per tonne.

 

• Revenue in mining comes down to tonnes of ore times grade times recovery times commodity price

 

• Costs split into very large upfront capital and ongoing operating cost per tonne, so capital intensity drives the answer

 

• The levers that matter most are ore grade, cut-off grade, recovery rate, stripping ratio, and all-in sustaining cost

 

• The five most common mining cases are mine expansion, cost reduction, new equipment make-or-buy, market entry, and operations improvement

 

• Commodity price is volatile and outside the client's control, so always pressure-test your answer against a price swing

 

• You do not need to be a geologist, you need clean math and a clear structure built on the industry's real economics

 

What Is a Mining Case Interview?

 

A mining case interview is a consulting case set inside a mining or metals company, where you work through a decision such as expanding a mine, reducing costs, or investing in new equipment. You use the same problem-solving approach as any case, but the revenue and cost drivers are specific to mining: ore grade, recovery rate, commodity price, and cost per tonne of material moved.

 

The interviewer is not testing whether you know geology. Having coached hundreds of candidates through industry-specific cases, I can tell you the bar is simpler than people fear: can you take an unfamiliar business, build a clean structure, and do accurate math under pressure. A mining case rewards the same skills as a retail or tech case, which is why your general case interview frameworks still carry most of the load.

 

What changes is the texture of the problem. A mining business sells a commodity at a price it cannot set, spends enormous capital before it earns a dollar, and runs on physical metrics like tonnes, grade, and recovery. Once you understand those few levers, mining cases become some of the most predictable cases you can get.

 

Why Do Consulting Firms Use Mining Cases?

 

Firms use mining cases because the sector is large, capital-heavy, and full of real decisions consultants actually advise on. Mining and metals clients face constant questions about which deposits to develop, how to cut costs as ore grades fall, and how to respond to wild commodity price swings.

 

There are three main reasons you might draw a mining case. The first is that you applied to an office in a mining-heavy market like Australia, South Africa, Canada, Chile, or Peru, where natural resources work is a big share of the practice.

 

The second is that your resume already signals interest in energy, metals, or heavy industry. The third is simpler: the interviewer just wants to see how you handle an unfamiliar, capital-intensive business.

 

The sector is also enormous and growing in importance. In 2026, Canada's metals mining capital spending is projected to rebound about 5% to roughly $24.2 billion, driven mainly by gold and copper, according to Natural Resources Canada. Copper demand in particular is being pulled up by electrification, power grids, electric vehicles, and data centre buildout, which is exactly the kind of trend an interviewer expects you to reason about.

 

How Is the Mining Industry Structured?

 

The mining value chain runs from finding the deposit to closing the site, and most cases live in one or two stages of it. You do not need every detail, but knowing the flow helps you place the problem and spot where money is made and lost.

 

Stage	What happens	Why it matters in a case
Exploration	Geologists locate and size a deposit and estimate its grade	Sets the resource you have to work with and the risk of the project
Development	Permitting, building the mine, and installing processing plants	This is the giant upfront capital outlay before any revenue
Extraction	Ore is mined by open-pit or underground methods	Drives the largest operating cost and depends on the mining method
Processing	Ore is crushed and treated to recover the valuable metal	Recovery rate here decides how much metal you actually sell
Transport and sale	Concentrate or refined metal is shipped and sold at market price	Revenue depends on a commodity price the client cannot control
Closure	The site is reclaimed once reserves run out	Adds end-of-life cost and environmental liability

 

The single biggest difference from most industries sits in two stages. Development demands huge capital long before the first sale, and extraction plus processing turns rock into sellable metal at a recovery rate well below 100%. Keep those two facts in your head and most mining cases open up quickly.

 

What Are the Key Economic Levers in a Mining Case?

 

Seven levers explain almost every number in a mining case. Learn what each one means and which way it pushes profit, and you can structure any mining prompt without memorizing a single company.

 

Lever	What it means	Effect on profit
Ore grade	How much metal sits in a tonne of ore, like 1% copper or 2 grams of gold per tonne	Higher grade means more metal per tonne and lower cost per unit
Cut-off grade	The lowest grade that is still profitable to mine and process	Rises when costs go up or prices fall, shrinking your reserves
Recovery rate	The share of metal in the ore you actually capture in processing, often 85% to 90%	Higher recovery means more saleable metal from the same rock
Stripping ratio	Tonnes of waste rock you must move to reach one tonne of ore	Higher ratio means more waste handling and higher cost
All-in sustaining cost	Total cost to produce a unit of metal, including sustaining capital	The clearest measure of whether a mine makes money
Mine life	How many years of reserves the deposit holds at the planned rate	Longer life spreads the upfront capital over more output
Commodity price	The market price of the metal, set globally and outside the client	Swings revenue directly and changes what is even worth mining

 

Two of these deserve a closer look because they trip candidates up. Cut-off grade is the line between ore and waste, and the standard formula divides the cost to mine and process a tonne, net of byproduct credits, by the commodity price multiplied by the recovery rate. As industry guidance explains, when prices rise, lower-grade material suddenly becomes economic, and when prices fall, only the richest rock stays worth mining.

 

The stripping ratio works the same way for open-pit mines. Suppose ore in place is worth $25 per tonne after grade and recovery, mining and processing cost $8 per tonne, and removing waste costs $3 per tonne. The breakeven stripping ratio is 25 minus 8, divided by 3, or about 5.7 to 1, so any block needing more than 5.7 tonnes of waste per tonne of ore should be left in the ground.

 

Notice how every lever ties back to revenue or cost. That is the whole game, and it means a strong profitability case interview structure is the backbone of nearly every mining case you will see.

 

What Types of Mining Cases Should You Expect?

 

There are five mining case types that account for the large majority of prompts. Each maps to a standard case type you already know, so you are adapting a familiar structure rather than inventing one.

 

Mine expansion or new deposit

 

The client owns or has found an additional deposit and wants to know whether to develop it. A classic version is a company in Australia deciding whether to expand its mine into an adjacent lot. You weigh the recoverable metal and revenue against the upfront capital and operating cost, then sanity-check against commodity price risk.

 

Cost reduction

 

Falling ore grades and rising input costs squeeze margins, so the client wants to lower its cost per tonne or per ounce. These behave like any cost reduction case interview, where you split costs into mining, processing, labor, energy, and transport, then attack the largest and most controllable buckets first.

 

New equipment make-or-buy

 

A miner develops a new process or needs specialized equipment and must decide whether to build it in-house or contract it out. This is a build-versus-buy decision where you compare upfront investment, unit economics, control, and risk on each path.

 

Market entry or new commodity

 

The client considers entering a new metal, region, or stage of the value chain. You handle it like any market entry case interview, sizing the opportunity, assessing the client's right to win, and checking the economics against incumbents and price cycles.

 

Operations improvement

 

The mine underperforms on throughput, uptime, or recovery, and the client wants more output from the same assets. This is an operations case interview applied to crushers, mills, and haul fleets, where small recovery or uptime gains can move profit a lot.

 

Knowing these five types means you walk in pattern-matching instead of panicking. The prompt may mention copper, gold, or iron ore, but underneath it is one of these familiar shapes.

 

How Do You Structure a Mining Case Interview?

 

Anchor your structure on profitability, then translate each branch into mining terms. Profit equals revenue minus cost, and in mining both sides have a specific, predictable shape that you can lay out cleanly in your first structure.

 

On the revenue side, build it up from the physical reality. Recoverable metal equals tonnes of ore mined, multiplied by ore grade, multiplied by recovery rate, and revenue equals that metal multiplied by commodity price. Saying it in that order shows the interviewer you understand how a mine actually earns money.

 

On the cost side, split capital from operating cost. Capital covers exploration, permitting, building the mine, and equipment, while operating cost covers extraction, processing, labor, energy, transport, and reclamation. Capital intensity and mine life are what separate mining from a typical services business, so call them out explicitly.

 

Finish your structure with risk and external factors. Commodity price volatility, regulation and permitting, environmental and community impact, and geopolitical risk in the host country all belong here. A structure that captures revenue drivers, the capital-versus-operating split, and these risks will cover almost any mining prompt, and the underlying case interview structure is one you can reuse across the whole sector.

 

Mining Case Interview Example Walkthrough

 

Here is a worked example so you can see the math in motion. The numbers below are illustrative and rounded to keep the arithmetic clean, which is exactly how you should handle figures in the room.

 

Example: a copper miner is deciding whether to develop an adjacent deposit. Let's say the deposit holds 10 million tonnes of ore at a 1% copper grade, with a 90% recovery rate, and developing it requires $250 million of upfront capital.

 

Start with recoverable metal. Ten million tonnes times 1% grade gives 100,000 tonnes of contained copper, and applying the 90% recovery rate leaves 90,000 tonnes of saleable copper over the life of the deposit.

 

Now bring in price and cost. Assume an illustrative copper price of $9,000 per tonne, which puts lifetime revenue at 90,000 times $9,000, or $810 million. If mining and processing cost $40 per tonne of ore, total operating cost is 10 million times $40, or $400 million.

 

Put it together. Revenue of $810 million minus $400 million of operating cost minus $250 million of upfront capital leaves about $160 million of profit before any discounting, which suggests developing the deposit is attractive on these assumptions.

 

Then pressure-test the answer, because this is where strong candidates separate themselves. If copper fell to $6,000 per tonne, revenue would drop to $540 million and profit would fall to roughly negative $110 million, flipping the decision entirely. Clean execution here rewards drilling your case interview math until large-number arithmetic feels automatic.

 

If you want structured reps on cases like this, my case interview course walks you through proven structures and math drills so you can solve unfamiliar industry cases in as little as 7 days.

 

Tips to Ace a Mining Case Interview

 

A handful of habits separate candidates who fumble an unfamiliar industry from those who look like naturals. Use these to turn a mining prompt into a quick win.

 

Tip #1: Anchor on profitability first

 

Resist the urge to show off mining knowledge before you have a structure. Lead with revenue minus cost, then map each branch to grade, recovery, price, capital, and operating cost. The structure does the heavy lifting.

 

Tip #2: Separate capital from operating cost early

 

Mining lives or dies on huge upfront capital that lands before any revenue. Call out the capital-versus-operating split in your first structure so the interviewer sees you understand the industry's defining feature.

 

Tip #3: Always stress-test against commodity price

 

The client does not set the price of copper or gold, so any answer that ignores price risk is incomplete. State your conclusion, then show how it changes if the commodity price rises or falls meaningfully.

 

Tip #4: Get comfortable with big-number math

 

Mining math runs into millions of tonnes and billions of dollars, so sloppy zeros sink otherwise good answers. Round aggressively, track your units, and state your approach out loud before you calculate. Sharpening your mental math pays off directly here.

 

Tip #5: Learn the value chain, not every metal

 

You do not need to know the chemistry of nickel versus lithium. You need to know where cost and value sit across exploration, extraction, processing, and sale, which lets you place any commodity into the same structure.

 

Tip #6: Tie recommendations to the client's real constraint

 

A miner near closure thinks differently than one with decades of reserves ahead. Frame your recommendation around the client's actual position on mine life, balance sheet, and risk appetite rather than a generic answer.

 

Practicing these out loud is what makes them stick. You can build most of this skill on your own, and learning to practice case interviews by yourself lets you run mining prompts daily without waiting for a partner.

 

What Are the Most Common Mistakes in Mining Cases?

 

Most mining-case failures come from a small set of avoidable errors. Knowing them in advance is half the battle.

 

• Diving into mining jargon before laying out a clean profit structure

 

• Forgetting recovery rate and treating all ore as if it converts fully to saleable metal

 

• Ignoring the enormous upfront capital and judging the project on operating cost alone

 

• Treating commodity price as fixed instead of stress-testing a swing

 

• Losing track of units and zeros in the middle of large multiplications

 

• Giving a generic recommendation that ignores mine life, regulation, and price risk

 

The good news is that every one of these is a process fix, not a knowledge gap. A mining case interview rewards the candidate who anchors on profitability, respects the capital and recovery realities of the industry, and always tests the answer against commodity price, so build those three habits and walk in ready to recommend with confidence.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is a mining case interview?

 

A mining case interview is a consulting case built around a mining or metals company. You analyze a business decision such as expanding a mine, cutting costs, or investing in new equipment, using the industry's economics of ore grade, recovery rate, commodity price, and cost per tonne. The thinking is the same as any case, but the math and levers are specific to mining.

 

Which consulting firms use mining cases?

 

Any firm with a heavy metals and mining or natural resources practice can give you a mining case, including McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. They are most common when you apply to an office in a mining-heavy market like Australia, South Africa, Canada, Chile, or Peru, or when your background already touches the sector.

 

What math do you need for a mining case interview?

 

You need clean arithmetic, not finance theory. Most mining math comes down to tonnes of ore multiplied by grade multiplied by recovery to get recoverable metal, then multiplied by commodity price to get revenue, minus cost per tonne. Comfort with unit conversions and large numbers matters more than memorizing formulas.

 

How is a mining case different from a normal profitability case?

 

The structure is the same, but the drivers are not. Revenue depends on volume, grade, recovery, and a volatile commodity price you do not control. Costs split into very large upfront capital and ongoing operating cost per tonne, so capital intensity and mine life matter far more than in a typical retail or services case.

 

What metrics should you know for a mining case?

 

Know ore grade, cut-off grade, recovery rate, stripping ratio, all-in sustaining cost, mine life, and the split between capital and operating cost. You do not need exact figures in the room, but you should know what each lever means and which direction it pushes profit.

 

How do you prepare for a mining case interview?

 

Drill standard case math until it is automatic, learn the mining value chain and its core economic levers, and run a handful of practice cases out loud. Read a few recent industry updates from sources like Natural Resources Canada so you can speak credibly about commodity demand and cost trends.

 

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