Elevate Uranium now has greater confidence in the uranium mineralisation present at its Koppies in Namibia after upgrading a significant portion of its resources to the indicated category.
To top it off, the company has also defined a maiden resource of 23.3Mt grading 200 parts per million (ppm) eU3O8, or 10.2Mlbs of contained U3O8, for the Hirabeb deposit to the south of the Koppies resource.
As a result, Elevate Uranium now has a total resource of 156.7Mt at 192ppm eU3O8, or 66.1Mlbs of contained U3O8, at its Koppies project with 78% of that (43.6Mlbs U3O8) in the higher confidence indicated category that provides enough geological certainty for mine planning.
Overall resources in Namibia have been increased to 112.1Mlbs U3O8 due to the addition of the Hirabeb resource while the company’s global resource base now stands at 160.5Mlbs.
The indicated resource is a large continuous area about 7km from north to south and 3.5km east to west in the central area of the Koppies deposit with smaller pods to the west and north. This continuity is expected to support a potential future mining operation.
“The Koppies uranium project continues to mature with 78% of the Koppies Resource upgraded to JORC indicated category. This is an important step in derisking the project, along with undertaking an U-pgrade™ metallurgical testwork program on mineralised samples from the resource,” managing director Murray Hill said.
“Results from the testwork program, which is in progress, will inform further technical studies and subsequent construction and operation of an U-pgrade™ demonstration plant at Koppies to confirm the potential value of the process at scale.”
He added that the successful addition of the Hirabeb resource highlighted the project area’s potential as the company continued to explore the ground and target future expansion of the resource base.
“The company continues substantial exploration drilling programs at Hirabeb and several other projects,” Hill noted.
“The geological knowledge gained at Koppies and, in particular, the understanding that uranium mineralisation extends into weathered basement adjacent to the paleochannels, means that we consider it likely that we will encounter previously unidentified mineralisation in areas where historical exploration has occurred or indeed, where drilling has not been carried out because targeting has been based on alternate geological models.
“This knowledge drives us to explore in the likelihood of identifying additional uranium mineralisation.”
Uranium picture brightening
EL8’s resource upgrade comes as the uranium market continues to brighten.
While spot prices have fallen more than 20% since hitting a record high of US$106.40/lb in early February, the remain elevated compared to the levels they have traded around since the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011.
Highlighting this, top producer Cameco has flagged during an interview that it might expand some of its mining projects due to increasing demand.
Meanwhile, Lotus Resources noted earlier this week that it is embarking on a low capital intensity, accelerated restart plan for its Kayelekera uranium project in Malawi.
Koppies and the U-pgrade™ process
The Koppies resource is one of the shallowest uranium resources globally with ~95% being within 18.5m of the surface and 50% within 7m of surface. The Hirabeb deposit has a similar mineralisation style and resource depth.
This indicates that a potential low strip ratio and low-cost mining operation is likely at the project, which would benefit the overall economics of any future operation.
EL8 has started a staged approach to demonstrating the value of its proprietary U-pgrade™ beneficiation process on the Koppies resource by potentially rejecting up to 95% of the mined ore mass to produce a low-mass, high-grade uranium concentrate prior to the leaching stage.
It has already completed collecting a representative selection of bulk samples from eight locations across the project for bench-scale metallurgical testing using all stages of the U-pgrade™ process in Perth, which is now underway.
Data from this testing will feed into the design and construction of a demonstration plant at Koppies to confirm the effectiveness of the process at a demonstration size that is scalable to a fully operational plant.