Elevate Uranium advances exploration strategy in Namibia
Marenica’s stock is now trading under the new name Elevate Uranium and ticker code ‘EL8’.
Aspiring producer Elevate Uranium (ASX: EL8) advanced its exploration strategy during the June quarter, based on the detection and delineation of uranium mineralisation within palaeochannels at the flagship Koppies project in Namibia.
Ground-based and airborne electromagnetic surveys are used to map the palaeochannels which are more conductive than the surrounding metamorphic basement rocks.
They are then systematically drilled to confirm the interpretation of electromagnetic data and to measure the contained mineralisation.
As drilling at Koppies progressed during the quarter, Elevate said it has become apparent that more holes in basement rocks contained significant mineralisation.
The company decided to deepen some of the holes in its March-April drilling program and extend them beyond the palaeochannels, which led to the discovery of a significant zone of uranium mineralisation centred 1.6 kilometres east of the Koppies I target.
The zone is open to the southwest and to the northeast and is up to 16m deep.
Elevate said the majority of uranium in the area is hosted by metasedimentary basement rock, which is believed to be an unusual feature in the Erongo district.
Maiden resource
In May, Elevate announced a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate for the Koppies project, totalling 41.4 million tonnes at 220 parts per million uranium oxide equivalent for 20.3 million pounds of uranium.
It brings the company’s total uranium resources to 115Mlbs.
The maiden estimate did not include the new zone of mineralisation as further drilling is needed to define its extent.
Capri drilling
At the Capri project in Central Erongo, Elevate commenced a drilling program of 200 holes for 5,000m to follow-up on previous exploration including airborne electromagnetic and radiometric surveys.
The combined surveys identified north-western and south-eastern palaeochannels in a geological location prospective for calcrete-type mineralisation similar to that at the Marenica uranium project, 20km to the southeast.
Hirabeb exploration
Exploration at the Hirabeb target in the Namib area of Namibia delineated two large zones of uranium mineralisation (named Hirabeb I and Hirabeb II) during the quarter.
Drilling completed to date has produced “encouraging” results and follow-up programs are being planned for later in the year to confirm the extent of mineralised areas greater than 100ppm uranium oxide equivalent.
Angela soil survey
Results of a preliminary soil survey trial at the Angela prospect in the Northern Territory suggest that soil sampling may be useful in detecting uranium mineralisation at depths of more than 50m below the surface.
Additional samples were collected during the quarter to establish the dimensions of the soil anomaly.
The results of this second stage of sampling will guide a tenement-wide soil survey to detect relatively-shallow mineralisation elsewhere in the tenement.
Financials
Elevate reported exploration expenditure for the June quarter of $1 million.
The company paid fees (plus superannuation) to non-executive directors and salary (plus superannuation) to the managing director, which totalled $111,375.