Robert Eckford is not a bank strategist. He is the chief executive of Rua Gold, a Vancouver-listed junior with New Zealand ground, speaking on VRIC Media in a conversation GOLDINVEST packaged on 15 September 2026 under the line “Why Gold Will Keep Running for Another 5 Years.”
His gold market prediction is about duration, not a print. Ignore the $100 daily swings, he told Jay Martin. The trend, in his view, still points higher for the next three, four, five years. Why Robert Eckford is bullish on gold is the same sentence he used on the fiscal side. Look at the next U.S. election. Whether the file stays with one party or moves to the other, every administration still faces a huge spend bill.
Why the gold bull market could continue until 2031, in that framing, is not a cycle priest’s calendar. It is the claim that the deficit does not retire when the ballot does. Can gold continue rising for another five years? It can if official buyers and that spend bill stay in the price. It can fail if real yields rip toward the 6.5%–8.5% band other managers have called a party-ender. Eckford is building a mine path. He is not running a rates desk.
He has also said, on Rua’s own tape, that a large share of his wealth sits in the company he runs. That fact belongs in the same article as the five-year gold line. A long-term gold forecast from a chief executive whose production aim is mid-2028 is a thesis and a balance sheet in one chair. Neither cancels the other. Both have to be on the page.
What's Driving the Bull Case
The first pillar is official demand. Central bank gold buying is the bid that did not leave when Western funds sold the mid-2026 drawdown. A long-term gold investment case that skips that column is a trading blog. Eckford put central banks early in the VRIC conversation for a reason. Future gold prices over a five-year window are more likely to follow official books than last month’s U.S. CPI. Jan van Eck said the same week that U.S. inflation is not the weekly engine. Ole Hansen said the next major move does not require lower rates. Eckford is in that school, not the CPI-up-gold-up school.
The second pillar is the spend bill. U.S. federal debt is already above $40 trillion. Interest is a first-order budget line. Eckford’s point is institutional, not partisan. A new White House does not inherit a balanced book. Gold price drivers of that kind are slow. They are also stubborn. That is the gold price outlook 2030 in one paragraph: the denominator keeps expanding.
The third pillar is the move gold already made. He was asked why the metal ran so hard. The short answer from the same school is that this is not a 2013 market. Gold rose in stretches when official inflation was cooling and when yields were not collapsing. A gold forecast 2026 that still waits for a rate-cut signal is waiting for a bus that already left. A gold forecast 2027 from Saxo that will not dismiss $6,000 sits in the same neighbourhood. Those are other people’s numbers. Eckford did not stamp them on the clip.
None of that is a gold price target. Duration is not $X. A gold price prediction dressed as certainty is how readers get hurt.
The Company Attached to the Forecast
Rua Gold (TSX: RUA; NZX: RGI; OTC: NZAUF) is a junior gold mining company with two New Zealand packages: Reefton on the South Island and Glamorgan on the North Island.
Reefton, including the Auld Creek gold-antimony zone, is the permitted-path story. The company published a preliminary economic assessment on a starter mine, said Auld Creek was accepted under New Zealand’s Fast-Track Approvals regime in July 2026, and has aimed to file the substantive application in October 2026 and a pre-feasibility study in December 2026. Public remarks from Eckford put first production around mid-2028 if that path holds. Recent drilling at Auld Creek, on company figures, included high-grade gold-equivalent intercepts and the first visible gold. Mineralization is described as open. Those are company results. They are not reserves until a compliant study says they are.
Glamorgan is the exploration sleeve: a planned 9,000-metre drill program and the upside that is not yet in a mine plan. Eckford’s operating idea is to de-risk the starter first and drill the camp second. Permit a high-grade, smaller-capex pit. Use cash flow later to work a large land package. Sitting still for five years of drilling with no income, he has said, is how you dilute the people who already paid — and how you watch a cyclical window close.
That is a junior gold stocks argument, not a bullion argument. Gold exploration stocks live or die on dilution, permits, and the next hole. Gold producer stocks and senior Canadian gold stocks live or die on AISC and the metal. Do not use a five-year gold line as a reason to skip the PEA, the fast-track file, or a New Zealand election that Eckford himself said can move sentiment.
Can Gold Continue Rising for Another Five Years?
The honest gold market outlook is split-screen.
On one screen: official buying, fiscal arithmetic, fragmented geopolitics, and a Western ETF book that just printed an $18 billion August and another strong week of inflows. That screen supports a gold bull market that can run past one Fed meeting.
On the other screen: a 5.04% 10-year, a Federal Reserve that may hike, oil near $110, diesel near $6, and a 2026 drawdown that already took more than 25% off the January high near $5,600. That screen can produce another ugly year inside a long bull.
Gold mining stocks inherit both screens. Gold mining companies do not receive Eckford’s interview as cash flow. They receive a gold price, a fuel invoice, and a yield. Precious metals stocks and precious metals outlook work that skip those three inputs are marketing. Gold investment in metal and gold investment in a pre-revenue junior are different jobs. Mix them and the five-year headline becomes a trap.
Gold market trends since 2024 already showed that a long-term gold forecast can be right in direction and still punish anyone who sized a thin name as if the metal only goes up.
What to Watch Instead of the Slogan
Watch the official buyers and the 10-year, not the slogan. Watch Rua’s October application and December PFS if that file is the one you already wanted to research. Watch the Glamorgan metres. Watch whether New Zealand’s six-month clock stays six months after an election. Watch AISC and oil if you own producers instead.
Gold market analysis that stops at “five more years” is a title. The work is the pillars and the trapdoor.
Conclusion
Robert Eckford says gold could keep running for another five years because central banks are still buying and because the U.S. spend bill outlives the next election. That is a long-term gold investment case, not a 2026 price ticket. He is also building Rua Gold on a 2027–2028 permit-and-build clock and is invested in that equity. Read the bull case. Read the project clock. Read the 10-year. Then decide if you wanted an ounce, a senior producer, or a junior that still has to clear a government desk.
Disclaimer
Remarks attributed to Robert Eckford follow the September 2026 VRIC Media interview packaged by GOLDINVEST on 15 September 2026 and prior public Rua Gold remarks. Some VRIC / GOLDINVEST videos involving Rua Gold have been paid productions. Company drill results, PEA, fast-track, and timeline figures are issuer disclosure and can change. RUA, RGI, and NZAUF are examples for context, not recommendations. This article is not investment advice. Speak with a licensed adviser. The author and publisher accept no liability for actions taken on this article.