“Try to picture seven U.S. economies lined up in a row. That’s what we are talking about: the significance of China,” he said. “The bottom line is pretty clear. We have growing demand from China at rates that are clearly going to steadily exceed expectations.”

The copper story, he said, is similar. It’s going to take 44 new copper mines producing 150,000 tonnes a year of copper by the year 2020 to meet anticipated global demand.

“And today in the whole world there are only 26 operations of that size,” he said. “The odds of finding 44 new projects — not just finding them but getting them developed by the year 2020 — looks pretty slim to me and that’s why you see copper prices where they are.”