A company pays $50,000,000 for an existing gold mine estimated to contain 1,000,000 ounces of gold. The mine has no salvage value, so the depletable cost of $50,000,000 is divided by 1,000,000 ounces to calculate a per-unit depletion cost of $50 per ounce. If the company extracts and then sells 100,000 ounces of gold during the year, depletion expense equals $5,000,000.
Calculating Units-of-Activity Depletion