Chamwe Kaira
Elevate Uranium says its uranium processing pilot plant is expected to arrive in Namibia by early October. The company announced this in its June quarter activities report.
The plant, designed to demonstrate the company’s proprietary U-pgrade beneficiation process, will undergo final factory testing in Perth in late July. In early August, it will be packed and shipped to Namibia, where it will be assembled on-site.
The U-pgrade process aims to remove gangue waste and concentrate uranium mineral into a low-mass, high-grade product before leaching. The pilot plant is intended to operate continuously to confirm the process at scale and reduce risk before commercialisation.
Once operational, the plant will process at least 60 tonnes of uranium material to support development and testing goals. Results from the plant will inform the design of a full-scale commercial processing facility.
The company said the approval process is on schedule, and a local Namibian contractor has been appointed to prepare for and support the plant’s operations.
Resource growth drilling also continued across Elevate Uranium’s Namibian projects. A total of 310 holes covering 9,179 metres were drilled during the period. Most drilling took place on the Namib IV tenement after completion of exploration at the Marenica Uranium Project.
This year’s exploration at Namib IV, part of the Koppies Uranium Project, has focused on defining mineralisation in the central project area using broad-spaced drilling. The strategy was updated following exploration at the Koppies resource, where mineral resources increased by nearly 200% through drilling beneath and near the palaeochannel.
As the company works toward a maiden mineral resource at Namib IV, it plans to continue with step-out drilling to map the extent of the mineralisation. This will be followed by infill drilling in selected areas to define zones of higher-grade mineralisation for resource estimation.
Namib IV lies 10 kilometres from the southern portion of the Koppies Resource. The Marenica Uranium Project is located 25 kilometres north of Orano’s Trekkopje project and 25 kilometres southeast of the company’s Capri tenement.
