Elevate Uranium – Carbon Free Energy
Elevate Uranium has made four uranium discoveries in the past four years on its Namibian EPL’s. During 2023, the company has increased its mineral resource estimate on the first of those four discoveries, the Koppies Project, to some 22 200 tU. This increase represents a rise of 136% for the Koppies Project, and a 42% growth of Elevate Uranium’s total Nambian resources. Additional resource growth has been targeted with drilling, as the mineralization remains open in multiple directions. Koppies is one of the shallowest uranium resources globally, with 95% of the resource within approximately 15 metres of the surface and 50% of the resource within approximately 6 metres of the surface. These parameters are important for any potential low strip ratio, low-cost mining operation at Koppies. The focus for Elevate in 2024 has been to increase the confidence level of the Koppies resource from the inferred to indicated category to allow commencement of technical studies. The Company plans to increase the number of operating drill rigs to five with rigs working at Koppies but also at Elevate’s other discoveries targeting maiden resource estimates, and also greenfields exploration targeting new discoveries.
Elevate Uranium also owns the Marenica project west of Usakos, which is a secondary uranium deposit hosted in calcrete. It has a current JORC measured and indicated resources of 2 400 tU in 0.011% ore, and inferred resources of 23 000 tU in 0.009% ore, established during a detailed exploration programme including geophysics, drilling and sampling. In spite of this significant size, the project is currently sub-economic due to the low grade, and is therefore held under a Mineral Deposit Retention License.
In 2012, the company had embarked on a research and development programme to develop a uranium concentration process that is unique and ground-breaking, and has lowered the extraction cost of uranium at the Marenica deposit. The research was done in cooperation with scientists from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is regarded as one of the pre-eminent research organisations worldwide, and at a cost of more than N$ 40 million.
The test-work resulted in a new uranium concentration process that is capable of concentrating uranium by a factor of up to 50 times, thereby reducing the feed to a leaching circuit dramatically. By using this new process a reduction in operating costs of 50-70% and capital costs of 35-50% is achievable. Marenica has patent applications in place for the process, which is now known as U-pgrade™. The process has widespread applicability to surficial uranium deposits, many of which occur in Namibia, and also is expected to assist other Namibian uranium projects in their development. It has already been successfully applied in bench scale test work to ores from other Namibian deposits.
U-pgrade™ is a beneficiation process that includes well established and understood unit processes that are configured in an unconventional manner. These processes include scrubbing, size separation by screening, elutriation and cyclones, and standard carbonate removal. U-pgrade™ basically targets the removal of selected minerals that impact on the separation, handling and leach efficiency, from the ore. The metallurgical test-work also demonstrated that the quality of the water used in the process has a minimal effect on the process performance. This means that sea water or saline groundwater, unfit for human or animal consumption, can be used for the bulk of the U-pgrade™ process, thereby minimizing the use of fresh water, which is so scarce in Namibia. The high value concentrate produced in the process can be leached on site with highly reduced amounts of chemicals, or be transported to an existing leach facility, thereby further reducing the environmental footprint.
Elevate Uranium is also actively exploring elsewhere in the Erongo Region. Drilling has been ongoing since mid-2021 and will continue through 2022. The company completed an airborne survey in the Namib Area during 2021 and scheduled another airborne survey further north for 2022. These surveys aim at locating palaeochannels potentially containing calcrete hosted uranium deposits, suitable to apply the company’s patented U-pgrade™ process. Resource definition drilling completed in 2021 at the Koppies project has been incorporated into a maiden mineral resource estimate.
