Elevate Uranium plans to begin a scoping study on its Marenica uranium project in the first quarter of 2027 as it advances a 123.7-million-pound attributable uranium resource base in Namibia and awaits the final stage of pilot testing of its proprietary U-pgrade beneficiation technology.
The company’s latest investor presentation shows its Namibian projects contain 129 million pounds of U3O8 on a 100% project basis, hosted in 320.7 million tonnes at an average grade of 183 parts per million U3O8. After adjusting for Elevate’s ownership interests, primarily its 90% holding in Marenica, its attributable Namibian resource stands at 123.7 million pounds. Elevate’s current corporate information independently confirms the 123.7Mlb attributable figure.
The resource base is concentrated at the Koppies and Marenica projects, where Elevate is pursuing resource growth and upgrading alongside technical work intended to determine whether U-pgrade can substantially reduce the amount of material requiring downstream processing.
The immediate technical milestone is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, when Elevate plans to release results from Stage 5 of the Marenica pilot programme. The company has scheduled the Marenica scoping study to begin in the first quarter of next year.
U-pgrade rejects 88% of ore through first four stages
Results from the first four stages of the U-pgrade pilot plant show 88% of the original ore mass was rejected, while 79% of the uranium was recovered into the remaining material.
Uranium concentration increased from 89ppm U to 590ppm U, representing approximately a seven-fold upgrade, with only about 12% of the original ore mass continuing to Stage 5.
The uranium flotation circuit forming the fifth stage was commissioned in August and is now operating and undergoing optimisation, with results due during Q4. Elevate says the operating data will inform subsequent technical studies.
Expressed as uranium oxide, the first four stages lifted the Marenica pilot feed from 105ppm U3O8 to 695ppm U3O8, a 6.6-fold increase.
The pilot material, however, is considerably lower grade than Marenica’s current resource. Ore excavated in 2012 for the test programme represented the then resource grade of about 93ppm U3O8, compared with the current Marenica resource grade of 180ppm U3O8 following the June 2026 update.
Elevate plans another campaign using material representative of the higher current resource grade. The company expects uranium recovery could increase because reject grades appear relatively independent of the starting grade, although further testing is needed to demonstrate this.
Historical bench-scale testing provides another benchmark for the coming Stage 5 results. Earlier testing lifted the uranium concentration to about 4,240ppm U after the fifth stage, but the current continuous pilot operation has not yet replicated that result. The Q4 flotation results will therefore show how closely the larger-scale operation can reproduce the earlier performance.
Marenica now holds 52.8Mlb
Marenica contains a JORC 2012 resource of 134.5 million tonnes at 180ppm U3O8 for 52.8 million pounds on a 100% project basis.
That comprises 16.8 million tonnes at 205ppm containing 7.5 million pounds in the Indicated category and 117.7 million tonnes at 175ppm containing 45.3 million pounds in the Inferred category.
Elevate increased its ownership of Marenica to 90% in July, giving it an attributable resource of approximately 47.5 million pounds U3O8. Its current project information confirms both the 52.8Mlb total resource and 90% ownership.
The June resource update represented a 31% increase in contained uranium, with Elevate continuing infill drilling to convert Inferred resources to the higher-confidence Indicated category needed to support financial studies.
Marenica is also where Elevate originally developed U-pgrade in 2013.
The technology is designed to progressively reject non-uranium-bearing material before leaching, potentially reducing the downstream plant size and reagent requirements.
Elevate ultimately targets mass rejection above 95% and estimates U-pgrade could reduce capital and operating costs by about 50% compared with conventional processing. Those remain company targets and have not yet been demonstrated through a completed feasibility study.
The company illustrates the potential difference by estimating that treating an equivalent original ore mass after U-pgrade could require four leach tanks compared with 100 under conventional treatment, assuming equal-capacity tanks.
The comparison is conceptual rather than a completed engineering design, but it illustrates why reducing the mass entering the leaching circuit is central to Elevate’s development strategy.
Koppies resource reaches 76.2Mlb
Elevate’s larger Namibian project is Koppies, where the combined resource has reached 76.2 million pounds of U3O8.
The main Koppies deposit contains 133.4 million tonnes, comprising 98 million tonnes at 200ppm for 43.6Mlb in the Indicated category and 35.4 million tonnes at 160ppm for 12.3Mlb in the Inferred category. That gives the main deposit 55.9Mlb.
The wider project also contains the 10.2Mlb Hirabeb resource and 10.1Mlb Namib IV resource, bringing the Koppies Project total to 76.2Mlb. Elevate owns 100% of the project. The company continues to report 55.9Mlb at Koppies, 10.2Mlb at Hirabeb and 10.1Mlb at Namib IV.
The mineralisation is particularly shallow. Elevate says 50% of the Koppies Project resource occurs within seven metres of surface and 95% within 17 metres, potentially supporting low stripping requirements.
Elevate’s current development concept envisages surface miners at Koppies and Marenica, potentially allowing ore to move from the pit to the run-of-mine pad and directly into beneficiation without the conventional sequence of drilling, blasting, primary crushing and stockpile reclaim.
The approach remains a development concept, not an approved operating mine plan.
Hirabeb remains open
Hirabeb contains an Inferred resource of 23.3 million tonnes at 200ppm U3O8 for 10.2 million pounds, but Elevate says drilling has encountered mineralisation beyond the existing resource boundary.
Among the extension results highlighted by the company are 1.5m at 753ppm U3O8 from 3m, 8m at 367ppm from 2m and 0.5m at 380ppm from surface.
Elevate says the results confirm mineralisation northwest of the existing resource and that Hirabeb remains open in multiple directions.
Namib IV has meanwhile added another 29.5 million tonnes at 155ppm U3O8 for 10.1Mlb to Koppies.
About 81% of the Namib IV resource is hosted in basement schists and granites, giving Elevate an additional mineralisation style to target.
Drilling results highlighted in the presentation include 3m at 780ppm U3O8 from 4.5m, 3m at 577ppm from 8m, 4.5m at 253ppm from 10.5 m, and 3m at 284ppm from 8m.
The resource remains open to the northeast and south, while additional targets remain untested.
Capri adds another 16km exploration target
Elevate also continues to explore Capri, about 35km from Marenica, where the company says it has identified uranium mineralisation over a strike extent of approximately 16km.
Capri does not currently contribute to Elevate’s 123.7Mlb attributable Namibian resource because the project has not yet declared a JORC resource.
Drilling completed in the first quarter of 2024 tested extensions to the mineralised envelope and returned intersections including 4.5m at 942ppm U3O8 from 7.5m, 3m at 544ppm from 8.5m and 3.5m at 438ppm from surface.
The project therefore provides additional exploration potential outside Elevate’s established Koppies and Marenica resource base.
123.7Mlb attributable across Namibia
Elevate’s detailed JORC table puts its total Namibian project resources at 320.7 million tonnes at 183ppm U3O8 containing 129 million pounds.
Of that, 114.8 million tonnes at 202ppm containing 51.1Mlb is classified as Indicated, while 205.9 million tonnes at 172ppm containing 77.9Mlb is Inferred.
After accounting for Elevate’s 90% interest in Marenica and 100% ownership of Koppies, the attributable position is 307.3 million tonnes at 183ppm containing 123.7Mlb U3O8.
The company’s Australian holdings take its attributable global uranium resource to approximately 180.7Mlb, which Elevate rounds to 181Mlb in its presentation.
Elevate had approximately A$29 million in cash and no debt at 30 June 2026, providing funding for its current drilling, exploration and technical programmes.
The next test of its development strategy will come with the Stage 5 uranium flotation results expected during Q4.
Those results will complete the current five-stage pilot sequence before Elevate moves Marenica into a scoping study in early 2027, when it will begin putting preliminary economic parameters around a 52.8Mlb project and assessing whether the large reductions in ore mass demonstrated by U-pgrade can translate into a commercially viable uranium development.
