Deep Yellow’s announcement that John Borshoff will step down as chief executive and managing director in October 2025 closes one of the most transformative careers in Africa’s uranium history.
His work reshaped the sector from Malawi’s remote Karonga hills to Namibia’s central desert plains, turning once-idle prospects into billion-dollar mines and later positioning Deep Yellow’s Tumas Project as Namibia’s next major uranium producer.
Borshoff founded Paladin Energy Ltd in 1993 after more than a decade at Uranerz Australia, where he served as chief executive between 1986 and 1991.
With a handful of geological databases, a contrarian belief in uranium during its deepest bear market, and a small Perth office, he built a company that became the first new uranium miner of the modern era in Africa.
His first major breakthrough came in 2002 when Paladin acquired the long-dormant Langer Heinrich deposit in Namibia’s Erongo Region from Aztec Resources Ltd (formerly Acclaim Uranium NL).
Construction began in 2005 at an initial cost of about US$92 million, and the open pit mine delivered first production in 2007 at 2.7 million lb U₃O₈ a year.
Two successive expansions—one in 2009 costing roughly US$59 million and another in 2012 costing about US$71 million—lifted capacity to 5.2 million lb per year.
Over its first eleven years, Langer Heinrich produced more than 43 million lb of uranium oxide, generating between US$2.4 billion and US$2.6 billion in export revenue for Namibia.
The mine employed around 350 people directly and supported more than 1 000 indirect jobs through contractors, suppliers, and logistics firms across the Erongo corridor.
It became a stable anchor for the town of Arandis and nearby Swakopmund, providing steady payroll and procurement streams even through volatile market cycles.
While the Namibian operation expanded, Borshoff pushed Paladin into Malawi. In 1998, the company acquired the Kayelekera deposit from Balmain Resources Pty Ltd, an Australian exploration firm that had obtained rights to the property following earlier exploration by the United Kingdom’s Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB).
The CEGB had spent about US$9 million between 1982 and 1991 mapping and drilling the uranium-bearing sandstones of the Karonga District but shelved the project when uranium prices fell.
Paladin entered into a farm-in agreement with Balmain, initially taking a 90 percent stake in Kayelekera, and by 2005 had bought out the remaining 10 per cent to gain full ownership through its subsidiary Paladin (Africa) Ltd.
Borshoff’s team re-evaluated CEGB’s archived drill data, remodelled the deposit, and re-engineered the project for modern production standards, laying the groundwork for Malawi’s first commercial uranium mine.
Construction began after a mining agreement was signed with the government in 2007, and the project was completed in 2009 at a capital cost of about US$215 million.
Kayelekera became Malawi’s first commercial uranium mine and its largest single industrial investment.
The project’s design capacity was 3.3 million lb U₃O₈ per year. At its peak in 2013 it produced about 2.96 million lb U₃O₈, averaging 2.5 million lb per year over five years of operation.
Between 2009 and 2014 it generated an estimated US$650 million in export earnings and created roughly 700 direct jobs, with another 1 500 positions sustained indirectly through Malawian haulage, engineering, and services companies.
Taken together, Langer Heinrich and Kayelekera accounted for more than US$3 billion in cumulative export value during their operating decade and injected over US$300 million in capital development across Namibia and Malawi.
They were the continent’s only two new uranium mines to reach commercial production between 2007 and 2010, making Paladin the benchmark for project delivery in a high-risk commodity environment.
The teams Borshoff assembled—engineers, metallurgists, and mine builders drawn from multiple continents—were known for executing on time and within budget.
Their work established a generation of African uranium expertise that now operates in Namibia, Niger, and South Africa.
When uranium prices collapsed after 2013, both mines were placed on care-and-maintenance, yet their foundations proved sound: Langer Heinrich restarted in 2024 with a US$81 million refurbishment budget and planned output of 5.9 million lb U₃O₈ a year, while Kayelekera remains a ready-restart brownfield asset valued at US$250 million NPV at US$70 per lb.
After leaving Paladin in 2015, Borshoff joined Deep Yellow Limited the following year to rebuild the company around Namibia’s Tumas Uranium Project. The deposits—Tumas 1, 2, 3 and 1 East—had been explored by Reptile Mineral Resources since 2006, but under Borshoff’s leadership exploration accelerated, tripling the resource base and culminating in a 2023 Definitive Feasibility Study.
That study outlined probable reserves of 67.3 million lb U₃O₈, pre-production capital of US$372 million, and forecast annual output of 3.6 million lb over 22 years. The project carries a post-tax net present value of US$486 million at US$65 per lb uranium and an all-in cost near US$38.7 per lb.
Deep Yellow secured Mining Licence ML 237 in 2023 and deferred the final investment decision in April 2025 pending improved prices. The company said the delay was a timing matter rather than a technical or financial setback, and that Tumas remains a key pillar of its growth strategy.
Analysts and government officials alike consider it one of several uranium projects expected to move into construction before 2030, alongside other advanced Namibian developments such as Etango-8 and Tumas North.
If developed, Tumas would become Namibia’s fourth modern uranium mine, joining Rössing, Langer Heinrich and Husab. Its life-of-mine revenue potential exceeds US$3 billion, with several hundred direct jobs expected during construction and operation and multiple local supply-chain contracts already identified in the Erongo Region.
As Borshoff prepares to hand over leadership, the arc of his career runs from Kayelekera’s first yellowcake drums in 2009 to Langer Heinrich’s commissioning in 2007 and now to Tumas, poised for a final decision.
Across these projects he mobilised close to US$700 million in mine-building capital, delivered over 46 million lb of uranium, and created thousands of African industrial jobs.
The economic legacy of his work—nearly US$6 billion in combined revenue potential across three mines—cements his status as one of the architects of Africa’s modern uranium industry.
Photo Credit: www.thewest.com.au
