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A follow up question to How much cargo did the Nostromo carry in her decks?

I'm assuming 2 billion tonnes was worth quite a lot, especially considering the length of time the trip would take.

How valuable was the cargo the Nostromo towing?

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Doctor Two
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  • Technically the Nostromo itself carried nothing. It was a tug - towing an automated refinery back to Earth. The idea being that by the time the refinery reached Earth it would have processed all the mineral ore. The refinery itself has the storage. – Tim Mar 14 '17 at 21:12
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    We don't learn the value of the cargo in the films, but the Nostromo itself was worth $42 million (adjusted to 2179 dollars). Sadly that figure is minus payload, of course. – tobiasvl Mar 14 '17 at 21:30
  • Assuming it's a 20M ton payload of shale, low-balled that's about half a billion dollars worth of finished product in 2017, otherwise; upwards of $1.5B. That's also assuming it doesn't use any of its payload to power itself, and that the price of oil has remained steady with inflation (and that my quick and dirty math is anywhere close to reasonable). – Mazura Mar 15 '17 at 04:29
  • @Mazura care to add that as an answer? – Doctor Two Mar 15 '17 at 09:41

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We don't know. We can safely assume that it was more than the value of the Nostromo ($42,000,000) since the beancounter lists it as a separate expense.

VAN LEUWEN: Look at it from our perspective. You freely admit to detonating the engines of, and thereby destroying, an M-Class star-freighter. A rather expensive piece of hardware...

INSURANCE INVESTIGATOR: Forty-two million in adjusted dollars. That's minus payload, of course.

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