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.

The dream of discovery must motivate many a geologist. Through skill, effort and luck they hope to eventually find something precious, useful or otherwise valuable—something well known yet found in a previously unknown location. But a group of geo-boffins from the U.S. Geological Survey not only identified a type of uranium deposit previously unknown to their country, they discovered a new mineral.

An economic crisis looms, ready to strike within a few years and maybe imminently. Exponentially worse than 2008, it will be a disaster “so large the system does not bounce back. The system ceases to exist.” That’s the bleak vision of James Rickards, lawyer, economist, portfolio manager, newsletter writer, author of four books and a keynote speaker at the Silver and Gold Summit to be hosted in San Francisco on November 20 and 21. He offers some advice on how to prepare for the impending peril.

“We were all young and relatively inexperienced in such matters in those days.” He was referring to copper futures, a peril then unfamiliar to him. But the remark’s a bit rich for someone who was, at the time he’s writing about, 43 years old and president/CEO of a company that opened four mines in the previous six years. Still, the comment helps relate how Norman B. Keevil enjoyed the opportune experience of maturing professionally along with a company that grew into Canada’s largest diversified miner. Now chairperson of Teck Resources, he’s penned a memoir/corporate history/fly-on-the-wall account that’s a valuable contribution to Canadian business history, not to mention the country’s rich mining lore.

What a year it’s been for some of the rare metals, energy metals and base metals that have shaken the markets. Still, precious metals have a way of retaining their distinctive allure. That helps explain why they get top billing as the Silver and Gold Summit returns to San Francisco on November 20 and 21, in an event that promises to be bigger than ever.

The fundamentals behind the last supercycle remain in place, insists Pierre Gratton. Yet the Mining Association of Canada president/CEO warns that the country has lost ground as a global industry leader. While the current upswing continues, the transition to a cleaner, lower-carbon future will call for even more mineable commodities. Whether Canada participates to its fullest potential, however, depends largely on policies directed by Ottawa.

“Originally my plan two years ago was to tie up zinc and copper properties focusing on zinc. At that time zinc was at 62 cents per pound, now it is more like $1.40. Let’s call it prescience—I was able to tie up most of the belt, which is over 50 kilometres long and about 28 kilometres wide. The whole goal was to explore the belt using modern exploration methods, mostly with a deep-penetrating airborne study. Pistol Bay has just completed that.”

Maybe it’s fitting that Indians, said to be the first to truly appreciate the gems, have returned to such prominence in the global diamond trade. The country’s alluvial finds constituted the world’s main source until supplanted by Brazil in the early 18th century. Although Indians originally held rubies and emeralds in even higher esteem, their admiration for diamonds spread to neighbouring cultures and beyond. The story of the Koh-i-Noor shows how one stone came to be associated not only with beauty, majesty and mystery but, more recently, with controversy too.