Bottom Line: Have a plan, but be aware of the untapped resources and new ideas swirling all around you.

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There has been interest in the mining community in Latin America as a region of untapped resources, but Winmill said risks remain.

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Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Naimi, points to an unexplored area on the Iraqi-Saudi border the size of California, and argues that such untapped resources could add 200 billion barrels to his country's tally.

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That's because their production is already high, while the number of untapped oil resources is limited.

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Iceland is a natural resource-based economy, with plenty of untapped natural resources and well educated workforce.

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Two decades later global investors, especially China and Russia, are eyeing its huge untapped natural resources.

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"We are seeing some investors looking to Zimbabwe, Namibia and increasingly Mozambique, which has vast untapped natural resources, " she adds.

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Boone Pickens stole the spotlight with his plans to build the world's largest wind farm slightly north of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle, the state's most powerful wind energy resources remain untapped.

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The Pakistanis, for example, have a surfeit of energy resources, notably huge untapped reserves of natural gas, coal and oil.

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Should a massive natural gas infrastructure build-out take place to move shale resources to market, with significant untapped feedstock potential, biogas could emerge as a clean energy Cinderella story over the next decade.

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