Celsius Resources has taken a major strategic step back from its once-flagship Namibian asset—the Opuwo Cobalt Project—after booking an impairment charge of approximately US$6.18 million (about N$115 million) in its latest half-year financial results.
This move signals a significant retreat from the company’s ambitions in Namibia and raises questions about the commercial viability of one of the country’s most prominent cobalt development hopes.
The Australian-listed junior miner reported a total loss of US$7.36 million (around N$137 million) for the six months ended 31 December 2024, with the bulk of that—US$6.09 million—attributed to discontinued operations tied directly to Opuwo.
The asset has now been officially reclassified as “held for sale” and is no longer considered part of Celsius’ active development portfolio.
Located in northwestern Namibia, the Opuwo Cobalt Project was first acquired by Celsius in 2017 and quickly attracted attention for its scale and resource potential.
Early exploration results pointed to a large, continuous mineralised zone containing cobalt, copper, and zinc—metals considered vital for the global transition to clean energy technologies, particularly battery storage.
By 2018, the company had published a maiden JORC-compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of 112.4 million tonnes at 0.11% cobalt, 0.41% copper, and 0.43% zinc.
It was one of the few advanced-stage cobalt projects in Africa not controlled by Chinese entities or linked to artisanal mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet despite this promise, Opuwo never moved past exploration and feasibility assessment stages.
Over the next five years, challenges mounted.
The project’s remote location, the technical complexity of extracting the metals from sulphide ore, fluctuating cobalt prices, and growing competition for development capital all eroded Celsius’s momentum.
In June 2025, Celsius Resources confirmed it was in advanced discussions to dispose of its 95% stake in Opuwo, aligning with its decision to record a US$6.18 million (approximately N$115 million) impairment loss in the half-year results published in July.
The company stated that it no longer considered the project to be “core” to its future growth plans and would focus instead on advancing its copper-gold assets in the Philippines, notably the Maalinao-Caigutan-Biyog (MCB) project.
The impairment charge effectively reflects a reassessment of Opuwo’s carrying value, with Celsius acknowledging that it is unlikely to recover the full amount invested in the asset through development or sale.
The write-down also reduces the company’s overall asset base and cleans up its balance sheet in anticipation of a possible disposal.
Industry analysts point to several possible reasons for Opuwo’s stagnation.
The cobalt at Opuwo is hosted in complex sulphide ores that require advanced and expensive processing methods.
The project’s inland location near Opuwo town in Kunene Region makes transportation and logistics costly. Cobalt prices have been volatile over the past five years, undermining long-term feasibility.
Celsius’s growing focus on its Philippine projects has reduced management and capital attention on Namibia.
In a note to investors, the company described the impairment as part of “a rationalisation of asset holdings to ensure focus on high-priority projects.”
However, this retreat is a blow to Namibia’s ambitions to diversify its mining sector and enter the battery metals value chain.
For Namibia, Opuwo had represented one of the country’s few forays into the cobalt space, at a time when the global push for electric vehicles and energy storage solutions is creating massive demand for the metal. The project was also seen as a strategic hedge against reliance on uranium and copper.
The loss of momentum at Opuwo now raises broader questions about the policy and infrastructural environment for developing critical minerals in Namibia—especially when matched against competing jurisdictions with more advanced ecosystems for battery supply chain development.
Still, the asset may yet find new life under a different owner.
Celsius has confirmed that it is engaging with third parties for a potential sale of the project, though no deal has been announced. If acquired by a larger firm with a longer investment horizon or access to cheaper capital, Opuwo could still become a viable operation.
As it stands, the US$6.18 million (N$115 million) impairment is not just an accounting exercise—it is a marker of Namibia’s unmet potential in the cobalt race. Celsius’s pivot away from Opuwo is a cautionary tale of how mineral resource promise alone is not enough.
Without the right combination of funding, technology, infrastructure, and market timing, even the most promising critical mineral projects can falter.
Unless a new buyer steps in with fresh capital and vision, Namibia’s cobalt ambitions—at least in Opuwo—appear to be indefinitely paused.
