Elevate Uranium managing director Murray Hill says mineralisation at the Koppies project test pits shows large areas of exposed carnotite six metres deep.
Carnotite occurs in fractures in the basement rocks; thus, any mining and processing method is expected to break the mineralisation at the weakest points.
Hill announced in March that the company would carry out metallurgical test work using the company’s proprietary U-pgrade™ beneficiation process.
U-pgrade™ is Elevate’s wholly owned patented beneficiation process, which removes non-uranium-bearing minerals.
He also said the U-pgrade™ beneficiation process would begin in April/May after metallurgical samples from the Koppies project are collected.
The company has excavated eight test pits at Koppies Uranium Project to expedite and obtain samples for metallurgical beneficiation testwork.
Hill said the focus of the U-pgrade™ beneficiation testwork program on samples from the Koppies Uranium Project would be to confirm the anticipated results at the bench scale level before preparing for a future U-pgrade™ beneficiation pilot plant.
In addition to collecting bulk samples for U-pgrade™ testwork, samples collected from the test pits will be used for hardness and abrasion testing, confirmation of the ore bulk density for different rock lithologies, petrological and petrographic studies to assist in understanding the source of the carnotite, and mineralogical studies to determine the minerals present and their associations and the expected performance of U-pgrade™.
Hill said the shallow depth of the Koppies resource lends itself to collecting samples from test pits, and bulk samples are by far the most representative samples to present to a beneficiation testwork program.
Koppies under EPL 6987 was Elevate’s first strategically located tenements in the Namib Desert.
Exploration and subsequent resource drilling have identified a 57.8 Mlb uranium resource less than 20m deep.
Elevate Uranium brought in more rigs for its 2024 drilling programs across its Namibian uranium exploration portfolio, which hosts 94 Mlb U3O8 resources combined.
In March, the company completed the inferred resource drilling program at Koppies uranium project in Namibia.
The company’s Namibian uranium exploration portfolio contains 94 Mlb U3O8 of resources, with the Koppies project holding 48 Mlb.
The Australian company owns Koppies, Hirabeb, Namib IV, Marenica and Capri projects in the Namib Desert.
