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Aurora Davidson, CEO of Amerigo Resources Ltd. | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

Rule Investment Media May 14, 2026

Summary

Amerigo reprocesses tailings (mined waste still holding recoverable metal) from El Teniente, the world's largest underground copper mine, rather than mining ore.

Tailings recovery brings geological certainty and capital discipline: the feed is already mined, so exploration risk disappears and growth self-funds.

A contract with CODELCO (Chile's state-owned copper company) running since 1992 provides tailings access, with compensation tied to output and copper prices.

A three-part framework — quarterly dividend (doubled to four Canadian cents), buybacks, and copper-price-linked performance dividends — returned a record 16-cent payout in early 2026.

Conventional NPV (today's value of future cash flows) understates such generational assets; the guest says think utility, not mining company.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway The interviewer argues NPV analysis misprices Amerigo: with cash flows after year 10-11 discounted away, a producer whose resource is not depleted ends up with a valuation tail worth as much as the whole, so depletion is irrelevant and the durability of its dividend understates its value.
  • He pushes back on the CEO's modesty about growth, contending Amerigo sits on one of the largest copper resources on the planet with roughly three decades of resources to exploit.