Paul Harris sat with Rick Rule in Kitco’s Montreal studio on September 9. Summer was over. Gold was trying to break out. Copper was at records. Ronald-Peter Stöferle’s In Gold We Trust model, Harris said, now puts a “base case” near $8,900 an ounce — about twice spot. Rule’s first joke was age. Stöferle is young enough to print targets. Rule is not.
Near term, he stuck to the line he has used on Kitco before. Gold will swing with U.S. nominal and real rates. If the Fed can let rates rise — if politics does not cap them — gold stays soft. A higher 10-year pulls capital into the dollar. The bond becomes a rival to bullion. Longer term he agrees with Stöferle “in toto.” The U.S. government, in his view, has no choice but to lean on rates and keep funding deficits with what officials call quantitative easing. Rule’s English is blunter. “Counterfeiting.” New currency units backed by nothing.
That split is the week. UBS has already warned a September hike can spark a short gold selloff. Joni Teves still calls it a knee-jerk. Rule is describing the same near clock and a different long one.
Silver Is the Retail Hand-Off
Harris asked if silver coils toward $100 if gold holds. Rule would not price $100. He priced sequence. Gold builds momentum on fear. When the story is valid enough for the generalist, leadership moves to silver. He saw that in October 2025 through January 2026. He does not claim to know why. Lower unit cost is his guess. Watch physical silver ETFs gaining assets, not losing them. That is the retail tell. Silver’s upside volatility is why speculators prefer it. It is also why a hike week hits silver first. This week already showed that.
Copper: He Was Early Bearish. The Arithmetic Is Still Tight
Harris put copper above $6.75 a pound, more than $14,500 a tonne. Rule admitted error. He had expected a weak 2026. Long expansion plus Hormuz oil as a tax. Demand, he thought, would slacken even if supply was tight. The economy surprised him up. Twenty-five years of underinvestment in copper exploration and plant cannot be fixed fast. In five years he still sees prices “substantially shorter” than today — meaning tighter supply, higher rationing by price. Kamoa-Kakula’s seismic trouble, Grasberg’s trouble, Codelco’s self-inflicted underinvestment explain part of the spike. A stronger world explains the rest.
Bernstein’s chart, Harris said, sees a deficit over 12 million tonnes by 2040, about half of current mine output. Rule’s London Mining Week memory was the capex hole. The top ten copper miners, in that 2025 estimate, needed a quarter of a trillion constant dollars just to hold output. Holding output does not close a deficit if demand still rises. Absent a synchronized depression, he sees copper rationed by price in five years.
Then Ivanhoe. Harris cited Ivanhoe’s Western Forelands resource in the DRC: up 30% to 42 million tonnes at 2.66% copper, indicated. Chilean average mill grade, correctly stated on Rule’s side, is about 0.6%, not 6%. World average near 0.43%. Rule called the rock rich and open. Ivanhoe owns 100% of Western Forelands. No CITIC. No Zijin. Friedland does not need a new billion-dollar mill. Kamoa already built one. There is a smelter. The knock is Congo. Rule said the DRC has done what it said on charges, rules, and remitting profits. He disclosed he is a large Ivanhoe shareholder. “No guts, no glory.”
Government take still comes. Mining investors, he said, should assume the host country gets about 50% of economic value after return of capital. In Congo, capital recoups first on a 100% basis at a rate near the sovereign dollar cost of capital. He sketched cost of capital plus about 12% compounded before the 50% split. Some of the 50% arrives early as royalty, duty, tax. Oyu Tolgoi-style pushes and Kamoa’s state stake are the same file. Ghana now makes large gold miners sell 30% of doré to a state agency at a thin discount for Turkish refining, with the take rising toward 30% if gold is $5,000. Lundin Gold’s Fruta del Norte file in Ecuador drew a 2023 tax claim of $73 million plus $81 million in possible fines, $154 million before interest. The company disputes it. None of that surprised Rule. At $1 copper there is little to take. At $6.75 there is a lot.
His proposed fix is a stream written into the concession. Government participates above a strike. The stream can be sold if the state needs cash now. Franco-Nevada and Wheaton already monetize gold and silver upside. He expects streams inside exploitation deals as early as 2026. Wheaton’s Antamina silver stream with BHP — 37.5% of that mine’s silver — is the scale marker. A $4.2 billion Silver Wheaton–BHP deal, in his telling, is why even majors will syndicate future streams. Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Mongolia could sit on both sides of that market. Both sides, he said, are still backward-looking.
North America Is Not a Free Lunch
Is Canada or the U.S. safer? Rule’s probability that fiscal regimes change to raise resource rents: 100%. The U.S. put an excess-profits tax on oil in the 1970s, not on movies. Alberta has done the same in fat years. Cheap exploration capital in North America is real. Lower cost of capital chasing a worse reserve is a bad trade. He would rather own a deposit worth stealing in a country the market calls “gamy,” if he thinks the market is wrong, than a deposit not worth stealing in a “better” country. The Lundin family taught him to take political risk for tier-one rock. Malaysia, Sudan, Libya, Congo paid. He will not take technical risk to feel safe.
Price is not value. August lifted the top 50 miners by about $357 billion, Harris said, back over $2.5 trillion, healing the March Iran-war washout. Rule’s warning was the old one. Do not confuse a bull market with skill. Form a view of value. Buy the discount. Sell the premium. Most people will not do the work.
Gold Equivalents and a Colombian File
Collective Mining put out a maiden resource on Apollo at Guayabales, Caldas: 85 million tonnes near 2 grams per tonne, more than 5 million gold-equivalent ounces. About half gold. The rest silver, copper, tungsten. Forty thousand metres drilled after the cutoff. Ari Sussman talks about a 10-million-ounce district. The stock sold off about 10%. Market cap near $1.4 billion. Rule’s trap list on gold equivalents was short and useful. Will it grow? What is front-end capex? How much is open pit, where 2 grams can be excellent, versus underground, where it may not be? Do the metals report to one circuit? Is the tungsten worth the plant? Terrain that is still lightly explored — Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia — beats another pass at Chile. He has owned Mineros de Antioquia for 30 years. Sociology around Marmato changed. Politics, Harris said, just took a friendlier turn. AngloGold Ashanti’s Quebradona concession was reinstated. Collective aims to file permits mid-next year. Colombian producers still trade at a deep discount to North American peers, even versus much of West Africa. Rule’s test: if Bogotá does not “rape and pillage,” Aris can close some of that gap. Social license still has to be earned. A concession renewal is not a mill permit.
What He Would Own, and What He Would Shop
Most people, he said, are underinvested in physical gold. It is savings. Gold stocks, in his view, sit at the widest discount to NPV versus the metal he has seen. He already owns “boatloads.” He does not need more. Oil is second: best extractive return on capital, even with Gulf prices high. Peak-demand talk from “energy physicist” Greta Thunberg is not his model. Copper is third because time and arithmetic say rationing. Gold dividends look poor next to oil and copper because buyers want optionality, not yield.
Beaver Creek’s shopping list, if he were going: takeover targets. Strategic — an Abitibi name within 50 kilometres of an Agnico mill. Tactical — scale for index and passive money. Equinox’s deals for Caliber and then Orla were the tactical pattern. Buy the NAV discount at the right stage.
Conclusion
Rule’s week is two sentences. Gold answers the U.S. 10-year until politics forces the printing press. Copper answers 25 years of skipped capex. Host countries take half after payout. Ottawa and Washington will raise rents too. Streams can price that fight in advance. A deposit worth stealing beats a safe mediocrity. Price is not value. Work is the edge.
He still will not print $8,900. He will tell you which clock you are on. Pick one before the FOMC does it for you.
Important information
This article is commentary based on a Kitco Mining interview with Rick Rule on September 9, 2026. Rule disclosed a large personal holding in Ivanhoe. Resource figures and tax claims are as stated in that conversation and by the companies named. They can change. This is not advice to buy or sell any security or metal. Mining and jurisdictional risk can produce total loss. Speak with a licensed adviser. The author and publisher accept no liability for actions taken on this article.