When Elevate Uranium Limited entered Namibia in 2010, few could have imagined that within a decade it would be sitting on one of the country’s largest undeveloped uranium resources.
The company’s flagship Koppies Project, located about 50 kilometres south of Swakopmund in the Erongo Region, is now the centrepiece of a Namibian portfolio spanning several exploration licences and more than 112 million pounds of uranium oxide.
What began as reconnaissance work on an old prospecting licence has evolved into a multi-project platform aimed squarely at supplying the next generation of uranium demand.
Koppies lies within Exploration Licence EPL 6987, part of a system of Tertiary palaeochannels that run through the Namib Desert.
The area was known to host low-grade, surficial uranium mineralisation, but it had never been systematically drilled.
Elevate’s first test holes in 2021 intersected carnotite-bearing calcrete within a few metres of surface, confirming the potential for near-surface, free-digging deposits similar to Orano’s Trekkopje deposit farther north.
By May 2022, Elevate had announced a maiden JORC resource of 20.3 million pounds of uranium oxide at Koppies 1 and 2.
The discovery quickly grew as step-out drilling traced the mineralisation along new tributaries. By November 2023, the resource had increased to 48 million pounds, with the definition of a third zone, Koppies 3, extending the system farther south.
A comprehensive drilling campaign through 2024 pushed the total Koppies Project inventory, including the nearby Hirabeb deposit, to 66.1 million pounds of uranium oxide, with 43.6 million pounds — roughly 78 per cent — classified as Indicated.
About half of this mineralisation lies within seven metres of the surface, and more than 95 per cent is within 18.5 metres, making Koppies one of the shallowest and most abundant uranium resources in Africa.
Encouraged by these results, Elevate extended its exploration grid across adjacent tenements.
At Hirabeb, about 80 kilometres northeast of Koppies, the company outlined an inferred 10.2 million-pound resource in late 2024.
At Namib IV, broad-spaced drilling completed in 2025 identified an 11-kilometre by 7.5-kilometre mineralised envelope still open in several directions. The next stage will be to calculate a maiden resource for Namib IV and determine its potential as a satellite feed source for a central processing hub at Koppies.
In August 2025, Elevate applied for environmental clearance for a new licence, Koppies West, which adjoins the existing project.
The clearance will enable detailed mapping, geophysics, and follow-up drilling should anomalies be confirmed.
A crucial element of Elevate’s strategy is the U-pgrade beneficiation process, a proprietary technology developed initially from test work on its older Marenica project.
U-pgrade rejects approximately 98 per cent of the ore mass before leaching, potentially slashing both capital and operating costs compared with conventional acid-leach plants.
To prove the concept on Namibian ore, Elevate commissioned a containerised demonstration plant in Perth during 2024.
Fabrication and factory acceptance testing were completed by Fremantle Metallurgy in mid-2025, with shipment to Namibia scheduled for October and commissioning targeted for late 2025. The unit will treat about 60 tonnes of Koppies bulk sample over a four-to-five-month trial under the supervision of senior metallurgist Andrew Jones.
If the trials confirm earlier bench-scale results, the company will have a robust technical foundation for a feasibility study and eventual mine design. Elevate says U-pgrade could transform the economics of calcrete-hosted uranium by allowing mining of shallow, low-grade deposits at competitive cost.
The Koppies and U-pgrade programmes have been financed through a series of placements, the most recent being an A$25 million equity raise in October 2024. Using the prevailing exchange rate of roughly N$12.50 to A$1, that equates to about N$312 million directed mainly to Namibian fieldwork and technology development. According to Elevate’s 2025 annual report, drilling across Namibia totalled 3,605 holes for just over 100,000 metres during the year — confirming the company’s status as one of the most active uranium explorers in the country. Although five rigs operated concurrently during much of 2024, the company scaled back to a single rig by mid-2025 to focus on Namib IV.
Although Elevate has not yet declared ore reserves, it has built a resource base that compares favourably with many operating mines at the discovery stage.
Internal planning envisages a central Koppies hub feeding from surrounding licences — an approach that could bring production scale without the cost of multiple standalone plants. Elevate Uranium Limited is an Australian-listed public company, with its Namibian subsidiaries holding 100 per cent interests in the exploration licences.
Institutional investors, led by Paradice Investment Management, own about 10 per cent of the stock, while the remainder is held by retail shareholders across Australia, the United Kingdom, and Namibia.
At the current long-term uranium price of roughly US$84 per pound, the contained uranium at Koppies — 66 million pounds — represents a notional in-situ value exceeding US$5.5 billion, or about N$110 billion using an exchange rate of N$20 to the US dollar.
Elevate emphasises that these figures are conceptual until full economic studies are completed, but they illustrate why the project is regarded as a future cornerstone of Namibia’s uranium sector.
The company’s immediate focus is on the successful operation of the U-pgrade demonstration plant in late 2025. Positive outcomes would allow detailed feasibility studies, resource-to-reserve conversion, and potential mine planning to commence in 2026.
With its expanding resource base, shallow mineralisation, and unique processing concept, Elevate Uranium has positioned Koppies as a credible candidate to join Rössing, Husab, and Langer Heinrich as part of Namibia’s next wave of uranium mines.
The coming twelve months — when U-pgrade is tested on Namibian soil — will determine whether this quiet stretch of desert south of Swakopmund can host the country’s fourth operating uranium producer.
