As if providing an outer defence, a solid line of retail jewellers blocks two broad avenues from Antwerp’s famed diamond district. Access comes mainly through a side street with a police-controlled traffic barrier. More cops and soldiers (the latter attesting to Belgium’s ongoing terror alert) patrol the narrow streets inside. The only vehicles seem to be armoured vans customized for the diamond trade or the occasional bicycle carrying an Orthodox Jew with long coat and side curls flowing in the wind but magnificent hat solidly perched.

Two years of escalating prices and several years of historic work have Emerita Resources TSXV:EMO in an exceptionally sanguine mood. Following December’s oversubscribed $4.24-million cash infusion and last month’s TSXV approval to close the Brazilian acquisition, the company announced a breathtakingly ambitious timeline for its Salobro zinc project. Should all go to a very optimistic plan, the company would advance from updating an historic resource to completing pre-feas and mine permitting within two to three years.

Okay, so over 8,000 people attended this year’s event, where over 300 companies set up shop on a sold-out exhibit floor and speakers drew SRO audiences. But how best to describe the enthusiasm? In a sector where bull or bear often depends on mood, any ursine trespassing on this event risked getting horns-gored into raw and bloody shredded beef. If anything, that would have marked an appropriate finale for the January 21 to 22 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2018.

With equity holdings in a wide range of juniors, Zimtu Capital TSXV:ZC goes well beyond the prospect generator model to help nurture and grow the companies that comprise its assets. Looking at just a few examples, they can be exploring early-stage minerals projects, progressing an advanced-stage rare earths deposit or generating revenue through disruptive technology. Zimtu helps build the companies with administrative, promotional, technical, legal and financial expertise that ranges from prospectors in the bush to market insiders in Europe and Asia.

Don Quixote comes in two guises. Bill Murphy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee associates his group with neither. Cervantes wrote of a delusional character convinced he was protecting the local peasantry from horrific monsters as the wannabe knight charged on horseback at a windmill. The words “Quixotic” and “tilting at windmills,” however, later came to describe not delusions but the pursuit of a real and noble campaign that’s also a lost cause.

A rare metal find on a property hosting a rare earths deposit becomes a project of its own under a new agreement between two companies. With a 75% earn-in, Saville Resources TSXV:SRE can now explore the niobium claims on Commerce Resources’ (TSXV:CCE) Eldor property in northern Quebec, where the latter company advances its Ashram rare earths deposit towards pre-feasibility.

Often forgotten in the quest for the next big discovery are the wide-ranging advantages of learning more about planet Earth. With a mandate to gather intel for the public domain, Geoscience B.C. has undertaken about 160 projects studying British Columbia’s portion of the planet and what lies beneath its surface. Now the non-profit’s reaching out to the public for guidance on its upcoming five-year strategic plan.

Evangelist he may be, but Gianni Kovacevic’s hardly a voice crying in the wilderness. His favourite metal displayed stellar performance last year, reaching more peaks than valleys as it climbed from about $2.50 to nearly $3.30 a pound. But Kovacevic believes copper has a long way to go yet. That will be a function of necessity as the metal shows “the strongest demand growth of any of the major commodities.” Especially persuasive in his optimism, Kovacevic brings his message to the 2018 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on January 21 and 22.

A geopolitical absurdity on par with some aspects of Dr. Strangelove and Catch 22 can’t be reduced simply through an executive order from the U.S. president. But an executive order from the U.S. president doesn’t hurt. On December 20 Donald Trump called for a “federal strategy to ensure secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals.” The move came one day after the U.S. Geological Survey released the first comprehensive update on the subject since 1973, taking a thorough look—nearly 900-pages thorough—at commodities vital to our neighbour’s, and ultimately the West’s, well-being.

A little-known legal requirement threatens Canadian companies trading in Europe. But it’s a threat that’s easily avoided. Beginning January 3, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will require all companies trading in the continent to have a 20-digit alpha-numeric code called a Legal Entity Identifier. Companies that don’t could be delisted. Companies that don’t apply for an LEI could face a pre-delisting sell-off by European investors.