Connected Minerals Limited (ASX: CML) has quietly transformed itself from a dormant tech shell into one of Namibia’s uranium frontier’s most active new entrants.
Barely a year after acquiring two exploration licences in the Erongo region, the company has drilled, reported promising grades, and committed fresh capital that signals intent to move quickly toward defining a resource.
The company’s Namibian portfolio centres on the Etango North-East (EPL 6933) and Swakopmund (EPL 9162) projects, both located in the uranium-rich Erongo corridor that already hosts world-class deposits such as Husab, Rossing and Bannerman’s Etango project. Connected Minerals holds its interests through Namibia U3O8 Pty Ltd, an Australian subsidiary of which it owns 100 per cent.
Namibia U3O8, in turn, controls an 80 per cent beneficial interest in the two Namibian licences, with the balance held by local partners Wine Berry Investments and Ploshchad Investments CC to meet the country’s indigenisation requirements.
CML acquired Namibia U3O8 in June 2024, finalising the transaction in October alongside its re-admission to the ASX.
The purchase price comprised about A$100 000 in cash, 7.5 million shares, and up to 15 million performance rights, bringing the deal’s estimated value to about A$4.6 million.
The company raised A$5.1 million within the same quarter to fund exploration and development work in Namibia and Western Australia.
Its timing proved strategic. The Swakopmund licence (EPL 9162) was officially granted on 29 January 2025, giving Connected Minerals a fully granted two-project pipeline covering roughly 125 square kilometres of calcrete and alaskite-hosted uranium ground.
The company immediately deployed veteran Namibian uranium geologist Herbert Roesener to lead field operations, focusing first on the Etango North-East project’s Ondapanda prospect northeast of Bannerman’s advanced Etango-8 development.
By April 2025, just six months after re-listing, Connected Minerals had completed a Phase 1 reverse-circulation program of 15 holes totalling 2,678 metres. Fourteen holes returned economic uranium grades, confirming the presence of stacked mineralised alaskites similar to those hosting the Etango deposit nearby.
One of the standout holes, OPRC0008, returned 5 metres at 358 parts per million (ppm) eU₃O₈ from 88 metres, including 2 metres at 643 ppm. Hole OPRC0010 cut 4 metres at 230 ppm from 47 metres, while OPRC0006 yielded 3 metres at 312 ppm from 68 metres.
Encouraged by those results, the company launched a Phase 2 program between August and October 2025, drilling 23 holes for 3,134 metres.
Approximately 80 per cent of the holes intersected mineralisation above cut-off grades. One of the best results was hole OPRC0024, which cut 2 metres at 467 ppm from 14 metres, including 1 metre at 635 ppm.
Another, OPRC0035, returned 4 metres at 456 ppm from 36 metres, including 1 metre at 716 ppm. These intervals are consistent with surface radiometrics and suggest that Ondapanda hosts broad, shallow mineralisation extending beyond the initial discovery line. The company has flagged a Phase 3 program for early 2026 aimed at resource definition drilling.
Connected Minerals’ latest interim financial report for the half-year ending 31 December 2024 recorded A$3.37 million capitalised under exploration and evaluation assets for its Namibian portfolio.
The company also disclosed minimum expenditure commitments of US$183,000 (about A$280,000) over the next five years to maintain its exploration rights—numbers that underscore an active and funded exploration programme rather than a speculative paper play.
The Swakopmund project, though earlier, lies near Orano’s Trekkopje and Klein Trekkopje calcrete systems and will host geophysical and shallow drilling work once assay interpretation at Etango North-East concludes. The projects expose Connected Minerals to alaskite-type and calcrete-type uranium mineralisation—a combination few juniors can claim in Namibia.
In over a year, Connected Minerals has achieved what many explorers take years to accomplish: a completed acquisition, capital raising, full licence grant, two phases of drilling, and a pipeline of follow-up work supported by tangible expenditure.
The company’s public filings describe 2025 as a transformational year, setting up a disciplined but rapid march toward an initial resource base in Namibia.
With funding in hand, assays trending positive, and a clear focus on expanding the Ondapanda discovery, Connected Minerals appears to be one of the fastest-moving uranium newcomers in Namibia—and a junior to watch as the global nuclear-energy resurgence drives renewed interest in African uranium play
