A piece on the investment blog SeekingAlpha addresses the flawed perception that “the U.S. exhausted the bulk of its mineral deposits during its rapid phase of industrial growth and is now buying what it needs from countries like China out of sheer necessity,” and laments the fact that the United States’ mineral resource dependency was not a hotly contested issue leading up to November’s elections.

Referencing presentations by Gareth Hatch’s partner at Technology Metals Research, Jack Lifton, and other speakers at October’s Best of Breed Natural Resource Conference hosted by Murdock Capital, the piece stresses the importance of not only “maintaining a domestic supply of industrial metals, but also the need to preserve institutional memory within American mining.”

Speakers at the event argued that in the area of American strategic metals, there are “solid companies with highly attractive fundamentals.” They pointed to promising operations by three companies specifically, which focused on Copper, Nickel, Platinum and Palladium, Rare Earths, Vanadium.

Thanks to the resources beneath our own soil, the United States’ mineral potential is vast, but we are still far from maximizing it. Obstacles, especially in the form of regulatory challenges, remain. However, as Seeking Alpha argues:

“If any vestiges of the lumbering bureaucracy of government have caught on to the importance and profitability of such enterprises, it is undoubtedly a good sign. As the three companies prepare for production, they stand as intriguing long-term value plays for the risk tolerant investor.”