Elevate Uranium has completed the inferred resource drilling program, which started in January 2024, at its Koppies uranium project in Namibia.
The company’s Namibian uranium exploration portfolio hosts 94 Mlb U3O8 of resources, with the Koppies project sitting on 48 Mlb.
The Koppies Uranium Project, under EPL 6987, was the first of Elevate Uranium’s strategically located tenements in the Namib Desert.
In January 2024, the company deployed three reverse circulation drill rigs at the Koppies project to expand the existing resource and increase the resource confidence level from an inferred to an indicated category.
Elevate Uranium will use the data from the drilling programs to update the current 48 Mlb eU3O8 Inferred JORC mineral resource estimate for Koppies.
The company will release a new mineral resource estimate by early April, while the drilling program to increase the JORC category of the mineral resource estimate has now commenced.
Elevate Uranium managing director Murray Hill said the company is transitioning its focus at Koppies from resource growth to project advancement by increasing the JORC resource category from inferred to indicated, which will feed into a scoping study and provide metrics on the project.
Hill said data from the latest phase of the resource growth drilling is being processed, and the updated resource estimation is in progress.
He also said the updated JORC-inferred resource is expected to be released by early April.
According to Murray, the company considers Koppies resources sufficient to take to the next level of development.
He added that increasing the Koppies mineral resource to a majority JORC-indicated resource category is necessary to publish an economic study on the project.
Hill said the indicated infill drilling program has already commenced to prioritise this activity.
“To understand the metallurgical characteristics of the Koppies ore, metallurgical test work using the company’s proprietary U-pgradeTM beneficiation process will begin following the collection of metallurgical samples from the Koppies project in April/May,” Hill said.
The samples, he said, will be collected from specifically designed test pits, providing valuable geological and mining data for the scoping study.
Hill explained that the metallurgical test work results are essential to developing an initial design of the mining and process flowsheet.
“Once the JORC indicated resource and the U-pgradeTM metallurgical test work have been completed, a scoping study to understand the project’s economics will be produced,” he said.
Elevate Uranium’s portfolio in Namibia includes the Hirabeb under EPL 7278, the Marenica Uranium Project, and the Capri Project.
