Elevate Uranium has released the first results from its U-pgrade™ pilot plant in Namibia, providing an important early demonstration of the company’s proprietary uranium beneficiation process at pilot scale.
In a new Assay interview, Managing Director Murray Hill discusses the results, what they could mean for the economics of Elevate’s Namibian uranium projects, and the milestones investors should be watching over the next 12 months.
U-pgrade™ was developed in-house by Elevate to reduce the amount of material that needs to be sent to the leaching stage of uranium processing. According to Hill, leaching represents the highest unit-cost operation in a process plant, meaning that reducing the mass entering this stage has the potential to significantly reduce both capital and operating costs.
The first pilot plant results cover stages one to four of the five-stage process. Elevate has so far rejected 88% of the mass, leaving just 12% of the mined material to progress to the fifth stage, while recording uranium recovery of 79%. Hill said the results are in line with previous bench-scale test work, with further optimisation still planned.
A key potential advantage is the impact this has on the subsequent leaching process. Conventional processing of this type of ore can require alkaline leaching at temperatures above 92°C for 24 to 36 hours. By removing calcite, which consumes acid, U-pgrade™ could allow Elevate to use acid leaching at ambient temperature over just four to six hours and with a substantially smaller leach circuit.
Hill said the pilot plant has so far achieved a six-to-eight-times upgrade in uranium grade, in line with the company’s expectations. Stage five, the uranium flotation stage, has now been commissioned, with results expected by December. Elevate then plans to test higher-grade material through the full five-stage process.
Beyond the pilot plant, investors can expect further drilling at the Marenica project as Elevate works to move the bulk of the resource from inferred to indicated status. Pilot plant results and drilling will feed into a study on Marenica, followed by pilot plant work and a subsequent study at Koppies.