Elevate Uranium (ASX:EL8) has upgraded the resource for the Koppies Uranium Project in Namibia, with 78% of the resource now in the indicated category.
At the same time, the company has defined a maiden inferred resource of 10.2 million pounds of triuranium octoxide for the Hirabeb deposit, which increases the Koppies Project’s resource to 66.1 million pounds, bringing the total Namibian resource base to 112.1 million pounds and Elevate’s global resource base to 160.5 million pounds.
Elevate Uranium, which has a market capitalisation of $118.75 million, says the indicated area hosts 43.6 million pounds, which is sufficient to support activities to move the project towards development.
The indicated portion in the central area of the deposit is a “large continuous area” about 7km from north to south and 3.5km from east to west, with smaller pods west and north of the central area. Elevate says the continuity is important to support a potential further mining operation.
Managing Director Murray Hill says the resource upgrade is an important step in derisking Koppies, alongside conducting a metallurgical testwork program using Elevate’s patented U-pgrade beneficiation process on mineralised samples from the resource.
“Results from the testwork program, which is in progress, will inform further technical studies and subsequent construction and operation of an U-pgrade demonstration plant at Koppies to confirm the potential value of the process at scale,” Hill says.
elevate says the U-pgrade process rejects greater than 95% of the mass of uranium ore by utilising commonly used and well understood beneficiation unit processes, which enables the removal of the non-uranium bearing minerals.
Meanwhile, Hill notes the success at Hirabeb highlights the project area’s potential as Elevate continues to explore the ground and target further expansion of the resource base.
“The company continues substantial exploration drilling programs at Hirabeb and several other projects,” he says.
“The geological knowledge gained at Koppies and, in particular, the understanding that uranium mineralisation extends into weathered basement adjacent to the paleochannels, means that we consider it likely that we will encounter previously unidentified mineralisation in areas where historical exploration has occurred or indeed, where drilling has not been carried out because targeting has been based on alternate geological models.”
Hill adds that this knowledge drives the company to explore the likelihood of uncovering further uranium mineralisation.
Additionally, the company has begun a staged approach to show the value of its proprietary U-pgrade beneficiation process on the Koppies resource, via several pre-development activities.
These include collecting bulk samples as representatives for the proposed mining method, bench-scale metallurgical testwork, designing and constructing a demonstration plan, and operating the U-pgrade demonstration plant at Koppies.
Elevate hopes to confirm the effectiveness of the beneficiation process on a continuous basis, at a demonstration size that is scalable to a fully operational U-pgrade plant.
Elevate Uranium is a dual-listed uranium explorer focused on its assets in Namibia and Australia.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Elevate Uranium
