Elevate Uranium’s U-grade™ Pilot Plant — the first facility of its kind ever to be deployed in Namibia — is on its way to the Erongo Region after being designed, constructed, and successfully tested in Perth, Australia.
The plant marks a new era for the country’s uranium sector, as it will allow Elevate to demonstrate the economic and environmental advantages of its proprietary U-grade™ beneficiation technology once installed and commissioned in November.
The innovative pilot facility is designed to operate continuously at a scalable level, confirming that the U-grade™ process can effectively remove gangue waste material and concentrate uranium mineralisation into a low-mass, high-grade feed before leaching.
This approach has the potential to reduce operating costs, energy use, and water consumption — key advantages for uranium operations in Namibia’s arid environment.
Technically, the U-grade™ Pilot Plant is a small-scale, continuous processing system that applies Elevate’s proprietary beneficiation method to upgrade run-of-mine uranium ore before chemical leaching.
In practice, it separates and removes gangue (waste) minerals such as quartz and feldspar — which typically make up 80–90% of ore mass — to produce a much smaller, higher-grade uranium concentrate.
This concentration step means far less material needs to be leached, reducing acid consumption by up to 75%, lowering processing costs, and improving environmental performance.
The plant’s purpose is to validate these results under real operating conditions using Namibian ore before scaling up to commercial production.
All on-site infrastructure and pre-installation logistics have been completed to prepare for the plant’s arrival. The company’s senior metallurgist, Andrew Jones, has already relocated from Perth to Namibia to oversee assembly, commissioning, and operations.
Once operational, the plant will process a minimum of 60 tonnes of uranium-bearing material, generating valuable data to support commercialisation.
Elevate Uranium’s U-grade™ technology represents a core part of its plan to advance its Namibian portfolio — including the Koppies, Namib IV, and Marenica uranium projects — which are strategically positioned in the world-class Erongo uranium province.
The pilot’s success will be critical in demonstrating the process’s scalability and confirming its ability to de-risk and enhance project economics across the company’s regional assets.
Chief Executive Officer Murray Hill has previously described the U-grade™ process as “a step-change technology that could redefine uranium beneficiation economics by lowering acid consumption and improving efficiency.”
The deployment of this first-ever processing plant in Namibia comes at a time of renewed global demand for nuclear fuel and underscores the country’s growing reputation as a technological and investment frontier in clean-energy minerals.
If successful, Elevate’s pilot plant will not only bolster its own project pipeline but also help position Namibia as a hub for advanced uranium-processing innovation on the African continent.
