Elevate Uranium quietly making its way into the Namib Desert

Several companies exploring, drilling or mining uranium in Namibia make big headlines, but this Australian Company - Elevate Uranium - hardly makes it into the local media.

Elevate has significant resources in Namibia and Australia, where it is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker code ASX: EL8 and trades on several overseas exchanges.

There are two things about Elevate Uranium - the first is that it owns five projects, all in the Namib Desert, Erongo region. This area is known as the Erongo Uranium Province of Namibia.

The second thing that makes Elevate Uranium different is the use of the U-pgrade™, which the company owns 100%. 

The September 2022 report by investingnews.com ranks Namibia (5,753 tonnes) second biggest uranium producer in the world after Kazakhstan (21,819 tonnes). Behind Namibia are Canada (4,693 tonnes) and Australia (4,192 tonnes).

The Namib Desert holds massive uranium deposits, especially between the coastal town of Swakopmund and the capital city of Windhoek.

Some of the biggest uranium mines, among them Husab and Rössing, are found here, where Elevate Uranium is reporting breakthroughs.

Elevate owns Koppies (I, II, III and IV) under exclusive prospecting licence 6987. The company also owns Hairabeb I and II under exclusive prospecting licence 7278, Namib IV under exclusive prospecting licence 7662, Marenica Uranium Project under the mineral deposit retention licence number 3287 and Capri under exclusive prospecting licence 7508.

The inferred mineral resource for Koppies I is 8.7 million tonnes, and for Koppies II is 32,8 million tonnes. The indicated mineral resource for Marenica Uranium Project is 249,6 million tonnes, while the indicated mineral resource is 26,5 million.

The inferred mineral resource is an estimate, while indicated is based on research. 

The company says the U-pgrade™ is a breakthrough beneficiation process that reduces ore mass by 95% before leaching, increases ore grade from 93 ppm to 5,000 ppm U3O8 and reduces capital and operating costs by approximately 50%.

Elevate Uranium says the U-pgrade™ process provides the potential of a 50% reduction in capital and operation expenditure compared with conventional processes. 

“U-pgrade™ provides flexibility and optionality in project design and development, and due to the anticipated lower cost of production, potentially allows Elevate to develop a mining operation at lower uranium prices than its peers,” the company says.

Extending the mineralisation zone

On 22 November 2022, Elevate Uranium announced the discovery of a new mineralised zone 6.6 kilometres south of Koppies II, now called Koppies IV. The discovery came after the company announced another one on 28 September 2022, where it found more potential uranium deposits 10km northeast of Koppies II. This zone was called Koppies III.

In October 2022, Elevate Uranium announced the presence of a 16 km zone of continuous uranium ore at Capri.

The Elevate Uranium managing director, Murray Hill, said the Capri discovery was the company’s fourth uranium discovery in Namibia over the past three years.

In June 2022, Hill said the exploration at the Hirabeb Project had delineated two large zones of significant uranium mineralisation. They named these Hirabeb I and Hirabeb II.

According to Hill, the results were encouraging, and they had planned follow-up drill programs to reduce the line spacing and confirm the extent of mineralised areas greater than 100 ppm eU3O8, particularly at Hirabeb II.