What is the relationship between the commercial prices of common metals; their actual abundances and relative?

Question

Describe the relationship.

What is the relationship between the commercial prices of common metals; their actual abundances and relative costs of production such as the metals Aluminium, Copper and Iron; their commercial price per tonne in $A; cost of production $A/tonne?

Answer 1

Scarce metals are more expensive of course. But for the common metals, more important than availability are things like the energy cost of reduction, how far you have to ship the ore, labor issues (such as the problems with copper mines in Mexico) and so on.

Answer 2

Its not always inverse, that is rarer the metal, the more expensive it is. A greater factor is the demand.