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Christian Easterday, CEO of Hot Chili Ltd | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

Rule Investment Media May 18, 2026

Summary

Hot Chili pitches a one-billion-tonne coastal copper resource at 740 metres elevation — peers sit near 4,000 metres — beside port, highway, and grid.

The CEO says the new La Verde discovery could clear five million tonnes of contained copper plus five million ounces of gold — tier-one scale.

Easterday calls Hot Chili's maritime water licence — one of two granted in Chile in 22 years — a monetizable asset that funds development without heavy dilution.

Copper equivalent (all contained metals expressed as one copper grade) runs near 0.5%, supporting roughly 120,000 tonnes of annual production, nearly 100,000 of it copper.

Catalysts ahead: a resource upgrade and revised pre-feasibility (an early economic blueprint) around year-end, then environmental permitting targeting production in 2030.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule discloses that Hot Chili is held in his own accounts and argues the higher copper price has materially improved the project's NPV relative to its capital intensity — his old criticism of the company — with payback now faster.
  • He treats Hot Chili's maritime water rights as a potential competitive and profit advantage in the water-stressed Atacama and presses the CEO on how they will be monetized.