Should investors get excited about rare earth metals?

Skipping the loan repayment could lead to the U.S. rare earths miner bankruptcy.

Welcome to the future.

The return to higher exports would be driven in part by at least 16 major projects likely to go into production within five years.

Capacscaya also has significant amounts of copper, zinc, cobalt, aluminum and iron ore.

Production capacity of lithium-ion batteries is anticipated to more than triple by 2020.

Prospecting, whether for precious or base metals, is of course the integral first step in the process of discovery, walking the bush and hammering rocks means boots on the ground.

As a name, Mountain Pass is as generic as they come. But, for a time, the mine supplied most of the metals used in the world’s electronics.

In this frank assessment of everything from gold and diamonds to potash and zinc, Kaiser Research Online author John Kaiser names for The Mining Report readers the companies that could be swept up in a rush to security of supply.

Mick Davis hasn't spent a cent of his $6bn, but private money and non-mining players' share of M&A has already doubled in less than three years.