Elevate Uranium grows Koppies resource to 57.8 million pounds

Elevate Uranium (ASX: EL8) continues to grow its promising Koppies project in Namibia, with its aggressive expansion program providing a 20% increase in the JORC-inferred mineral resource estimate (MRE) to 57.8 million pounds.

The MRE increase comes at a time when the company is pushing ahead with a multi-rig delineation of Koppies and its total Namibian uranium resource.

Elevate currently has three drill rigs in the field working at converting the Koppies inferred resource to indicated, whilst a further two rigs are carrying out exploration activities at potential satellite projects within trucking distance of the project.

10% Namibian increase

Managing director Murray Hill said the 20% resource increase at Koppies project has also increased the company’s overall Namibian uranium mineral resources by 10% to 103.8Mlb and its global resources to 152.2Mlb.

“The company and its employees are excited to have achieved this milestone at Koppies and they look forward to continuing to advance the project, whilst at the same time adding value to the company’s other assets in Namibia and Australia,” he said.

“Further increases of the company’s global resource in Namibia [are] envisioned as exploration continues.”

Low-cost development

The mineralisation at Koppies is very shallow, with approximately 95% of the resource within 18.5m of the surface and 50% of the resource within 7m of the surface.

Elevate is confident this provides it with potential low strip ratio and low-cost mining operation which would be beneficial to the overall economics of any future operation.

“Due to the shallow nature of mineralisation and effectiveness of our exploration programs, the all-in project discovery cost of the Koppies inferred resource is exceptionally low at $0.10 (US$0.068) per pound,” Mr Hill said.

U-pgrade program

In parallel with the aggressive drilling campaign, Elevate is focusing on obtaining an increased understanding of the Koppies mineralisation.

It is planning to utilise its unique U-pgrade beneficiation process which was developed for testing of the uranium mineralisation at its Marenica project in Namibia.

Elevate believes the similarity of mineralisation at Koppies and Marenica means the U-pgrade technology will be able to successfully beneficiate the mineralisation at Koppies.

It is now preparing to undertake a detailed metallurgical test work program on bulk Koppies samples.

Under this program, samples with varying lithologies, uranium grades and gangue minerals will be collected and freighted to Perth for the test work program in the second quarter of 2024.