Last week, Vancouver-based Exeter completed an initial blueprint for a mine, known as a pre-feasibility study, that suggests a mine worth over $27 billion in future revenue is technically and economically viable.

Known as the Caspiche deposit, this monster deposit is located in northern Chile's gold-rich Maricunga mineral belt, where more than 100 million ounces of gold are already concentrated among a clutch of existing mines.

Now the region has gained some additional luster with the announcement that Caspiche boasts 19.3 million proven and probable ounces of gold. A further 4.6 billion pounds of copper and over 41 million ounces of silver also sweetens the overall value of the deposit. This makes it one of the world's biggest

So say a number of investment-industry mining sector analysts who have been following the rising fortunes of Western Potash Corp. (WPSHF.PK). Just last week, the Vancouver-based aspiring miner demonstrated why it would be quite a catch.

It announced a major benchmark development, the publication of a better-than-expected pre-feasibility study (an initial blueprint for a mine) -- that attests to the robust economics of a world-class mine in-the-making. Commenting on this solid development, which significantly de-risks the company’s Saskatchewan-based project, Scotia Capital analyst Ben Isaacson says Western Potash has become especially attractive to the world’s potash-hungry emerging super-powers.

“We would not be surprised to see an SEO (state-owned-enterprise) take a run at WPX in the near term,” he says in

The only other mine-in-the-making in Latin America that edges Caspiche in terms of size is the nearby Cerro

Silver promises to become the next big buzzword among investors in 2011 and beyond, according to one of the investment industry’s most prescient and successful experts on precious metals.

Eric Sprott is the founder of the Toronto-based investment firm, Sprott Asset Management LP. His renowned hedge fund, Sprott Hedge Fund LP, is heavily weighted in precious metals and has generated an estimated 23% annualized return over the past decade. Other similarly oriented funds under his stewardship have also been stellar performers in recent years.

He’s now so bullish on silver that he launched the $575 million Sprott Physical Silver Trust in November of last year as he believes that: “Silver will be the investment of the decade.”

“I think that silver could easily get to $50 this year,” Sprott tells BNWnews.ca.

This all bodes especially well for publicly traded companies that are already mining silver, he says.

This is why the world’s most influential leaders, ranging from U.S. President Obama to the Premier of China and even famed multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, are all heralding an exotic industrial metal called vanadium.

Governments the world over are directing billions of dollars of grants into vanadium’s fast-emerging role in the electrification of society’s energy supplies. And major corporations are likewise investing in this ‘next big thing’ in the hopes of addressing global warming and society’s dependence on dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

By way of explanation, a new generation of advanced green batteries is set to do everything from beefing up electric cars to providing uninterrupted solar and wind power to whole cities. That’s because of a crucial new

This is where over 115 million ounces of gold have been outlined in America’s last mineral frontier by three high-flying gold developers: Novagold Resources (NG), Northern Dynasty Minerals (NAK) and International Tower Hill Mines (THM).

The latest development to illustrate how their world class discoveries rival the best on offer anywhere else in the world involves a new high-grade discovery zone at the emerging 10.9 million ounce Livengood gold deposit in politically stable, pro-mining central Alaska. Wholly owned by International Tower Hill Mines, the deposit is located 70 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Last week, the company announced its best drill results to date. This new development could lead to a significant expansion of what by global standards is already an unusually large

The task has been simplified by the fact that only two gold juniors have, to date, made sufficiently impressive gold discoveries to attract takeover speculation. One is Mansfield Minerals (MFMNF.PK), which has been quietly developing its Lindero gold discovery since as far back as 1999.

The other is Extorre Gold Mines (EXGMF.PK), which burst onto the mining scene just over six months ago after it was spun-off from high-flying Exeter Resource Corp. (XRA). Extorre inherited the high-grade Cerro Moro deposit from its parent company. However, only a hostile takeover could wrestle Cerro Moro from Extorre any time soon, according to the company’s management.

Having just completed a $40 million equity financing, Extorre says it’s committed to building considerably

The report’s Toronto-based lead mining analyst, Michael Jalonen, (who was hailed by Forbes Magazine in 2008 as one of the best in the business) says:

For the balance of 2010, we expect the reserve-hungry senior and mid-tier producers to continue focusing their attention on resource-rich junior producers and developers.

With gold prices vaulting to new highs, major gold miners are now armed with strong balance sheets, Jalonen notes. And the race is on to ramp-up their production figures to continue to cash in on a secular bull market in gold prices. But that’s not proving easy.

That is why the White House is championing the mass adoption of lithium-ion batteries as the most efficient way to electrify motorized vehicles. In 2009, alone, the U.S. federal government granted over $25 billion in loans to automobile and battery makers. Such initiatives promise to help President Obama accomplish his well-publicized mandate to usher-in one million electric vehicles in the U.S. by 2015.

Similarly, the leaders of other major industrialized nations are also rallying around such political and economic imperatives with their own multi-billion dollar

So says John Embry, a world-renowned long-time gold advocate and the chief investment strategist at Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management, which runs the Sprott Gold and Precious Metals Fund.

“As inflation rears its ugly head and future demand for gold promises to overwhelm mine supply, gold’s price will launch a parabolic rise from current levels in the near future,” he says. “Gold has much, much further to go.”

The monetization of various forms of government debt by the printing of large sums of money, disarmingly referred to as ‘quantitative easily,’ is proving to be the catalyst for accelerated inflation, he says.

Thus, if inflation gathers momentum, long-term interest rates will rise, which in turn should speed up the weakening of the anemic US dollar, Embry reasons. Furthermore, gold

Of Exeter’s war chest, a sizeable amount is being used to develop one of the world’s largest gold discoveries in recent years. The Caspiche gold/copper deposit in Chile is a veritable monster that weighs in at 33.7 million gold ‘equivalent’ ounces. (This ‘equivalent’ metric involves silver and copper by-product metals that are valued using baseline prices of US $12 for silver and US $2.00 per pound for copper, while US $800 is used for the gold valuation). Stated another way, Caspiche boasts an inferred resource estimate