Elevate Uranium increases Koppies resource by 136% to 48Mlb

Aspiring producer Elevate Uranium (ASX: EL8) has released an updated inferred mineral resource estimate for its Koppies uranium project in Namibia.

The new figure sits at 48 million pounds uranium oxide equivalent and increases the company’s total uranium resources to 142Mlb.

It also represents a 42% increase in Elevate’s total Namibian resources to 94Mlb uranium oxide equivalent.

The new estimate was reported at a number of uranium cut-off grades from 50 parts per million up to 200ppm and the figures derived from these grades indicate the mineralisation remains robust and consistent.

Mineral resources have been clipped to the Koppies tenement boundary to the west, where the deposit is contiguous with the Tumas 1 East mineral resource owned by Deep Yellow (ASX: DYL).

Resource growth

Elevate said additional resource growth would now being targeted with drill rigs at the mineralised zone south of the Koppies 2 prospect and to the south of the resource envelope at Koppies 4.

Drilling to date has shown the mineralisation remains open, indicating potential for further expansion of the envelope as work progresses.

Further programs are planned to test a possible extension of the project’s estimated resource areas.

Shallow deposit

Koppies is one of the world’s most shallow uranium deposits, with 50% of the total resource sitting approximately 6 metres from the surface and 95% being within 15m of surface.

These parameters are believed to be important for any potential low strip ratio, low-cost mining operation at Koppies.

In May 2022, Elevate released a maiden inferred resource estimate for Koppies of 20.3 million pounds uranium oxide equivalent.

Palaeochannel-hosted uranium

Elevate’s past exploration at Koppies has been focused on palaeochannel-hosted uranium mineralisation using ground and airborne electromagnetic (EM) surveys as a regional mapping tool.

Drilling has typically been to a shallow depth with holes terminated after intersecting a few metres of metamorphic basement rocks assumed to be unmineralised.

Over the years, the mineralisation has been observed at the base of many of the shallow drillholes, leading to the belief that uranium sits beneath the palaeochannels.

Koppies 3 discovery

This change in geological thinking resulted in a new exploration strategy which led to Elevate’s discovery of the Koppies 3 target in late-2022.

The deposit extends over 8 kilometres in a northeast to southwest direction and is currently up to 2km in width and up to 16m in depth from surface.

Drilling has confirmed contiguous mineralisation between Koppies 3 and Koppies 2, proving that the two domains are connected while also showing that mineralisation remains open to the northeast.

Uranium mineralisation at Koppies 3 is predominantly hosted as calcrete veins within basement schists.