Q&A with Murray Hill, Managing Director and CEO, Elevate Uranium Ltd
To start us off, can you give us a brief overview of Elevate Uranium, your strategy, and what stage your key projects are at today?
Elevate Uranium is a 100% uranium focused exploration and development company, with a portfolio of assets in tier-1 uranium jurisdictions, Namibia and Australia, with a total global JORC Resource of 160Mlb U3O8. Our strategy is to de-risk and develop our projects, with a particular focus on our Nambian assets. Our flagship Koppies uranium Project in Namibia has a 66Mlb U3O8 JORC Resource and we are actively working on expanding this. We developed our proprietary U-pgradeTM beneficiation process, which is central to our strategy and provides us with a key competitive advantage. We are currently advancing the U-pgradeTM pilot plant, which is enroute to Namibia for operation testing on our ore later in the year. The results of this pilot programme will inform the next phase of development studies.
Your Namibian projects are getting attention. What makes this region so important for uranium exploration right now?
Namibia is a globally recognised uranium mining jurisdiction and the world’s third-largest uranium producer. The country has a supportive government, excellent infrastructure, and an experienced workforce, all of which contribute to a positive mining environment. Our projects are located in the Erongo region, which has been producing uranium for 49 consecutive years. The region is home to many surficial calcrete hosted uranium deposits, a style of mineralization well-suited to our U-pgradeTM process, giving us a strategic advantage in a proven mining region.
You’ve developed a uranium beneficiation process called U-pgrade™. Can you explain why it’s so important to Elevate and your projects?
U-pgradeTM is our wholly owned, patented beneficiation process that is a potential game-changer for surficial uranium deposits, like those in Namibia. The process uses commonly used unit operations to remove ~95% of the waste (gangue) material producing a low-mass, high-grade concentrate before the leaching stage. This has several major benefits: it can reduce the capital and operating costs by approximately 50% compared to conventional processing, significantly reduce water and reagent consumption, and provide us with flexibility in project development. Put simply, U-pgradeTM has the potential to significantly improve projects economics.
What’s your view on the uranium supply market? Where does Elevate fit into the global picture?
The uranium market is currently experiencing a supply deficit, with demand from nuclear power generation growing globally as countries transition to the cleaner reliable baseload energy source. This gap is expected to widen, and utilities are facing a need to secure long-term supplies, putting positive pressure on the uranium price, which we anticipate will continue to strengthen. Elevate Uranium is well positioned to help fill this future supply gap; our projects are ideally located, U-pgradeTM has the potential to bring our resources in Namibia into production at a competitive cost and we have a clear strategy to develop them.
Do you see your Namibian projects potentially helping to close this supply gap and what steps do you need to take next to achieve this?
Yes, absolutely. Our Namibian projects, especially Koppies, have the potential to be a significant near-term contributor to uranium supply. The next steps are critical. We are advancing the U-pgradeTM pilot plant to operate on our Nambian ore, which will provide the data needed to finalize technical studies. Concurrently, we are continuing our resource drilling programmes to expand and increase the confidence level of our mineral resources, which will further enhance the project’s value.
Can you share what milestones investors should watch for over the next six to 12 months?
The next 6-12 months are a very exciting time for Elevate Uranium. Investors should be watching for the arrival, assembly, and operation of our U-pgradeTM pilot plant in Namibia. The results from this will be a key milestone, as they will validate the U-pgradeTM process at a continuous, scalable size and inform technical and development studies. Additionally, we will continue to provide updates on our exploration drilling programmes where we are targeting resource expansion and new discoveries, both in Namibia and on our Angela project in the Northern Territory of Australia.
