Celsius Resources has a 95% interest in the highly prospective Opuwo Cobalt Project in northern Namibia.

The project is large scale and located in a mining-friendly, politically stable, and safe location with excellent infrastructure. It has ample access to grid power, water, and services allowing a range of development options.

Aligned with Celsius Resources strategy of continuing to identify and develop world class, high-grade assets, the Opuwo Cobalt Project represents significant global potential.

Opuwo JORC mineral resource update

• Updated Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource at Opuwo doubles to 225.5 million tonnes, grading 0.12% cobalt, 0.43% copper and 0.54% zinc.
• 259,000 tonnes of contained cobalt demonstrates potential for Opuwo to be a significant future supplier of cobalt into the battery market.
• 970,000 tonnes of contained copper anticipated to enhance the viability of the project given current and forecast copper prices.
• Mineral Resource update is key part of the technical and commercial re-evaluation of the Company’s Opuwo cobalt-copper project.

Why Cobalt?

Along with copper, cobalt is a key element in the production of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and home battery storage.

A Bloomberg New Energy Finance study expects electronic vehicles to hit 10% of global passenger vehicle sales by 2025, rising to 28% in 2030 and 58% in 2040.

The electrification of transport is now one of the major trends of the 21st century and seen by scientists and governments as the key to reducing carbon in the atmosphere.

Its ability to stand up to high temperatures also makes cobalt a highly suitable element for developing super alloys such as those used in jet turbine engines.

Development pathway

• Assessing ways of improving project viability given recent increases in the cobalt and copper prices.
• Awaiting feedback from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism on the EIA Scoping Report submitted (along with any public submissions).
• Priority is to review the project and to understand how best to unlock potential value for the benefit of the Company and its shareholders.

Project updates

• Completed nine diamond drill holes for future metallurgical optimisation work. Drilling also confirmed the trend along the strike-length of the modelled ore body, reinforcing the consistent nature of the Dolostone Ore Formation (DOF) and wider DOF mineralisation of the Opuwo Cobalt Deposit.
• Preliminary roasting and tank leach test work results (from previous bulk samples) show encouraging results of 95% cobalt and 98% copper recovery which demonstrate that the Opuwo Ore is amenable to Roasting and Tank Leach downstream process method.
• Further optimisation flotation test works are in development which may improve Cobalt recovery to about 85% that will feed into the engineering design criteria to update the 2018 Scoping Study.

Announcements

Celsius improves recoveries of Cobalt and Copper at Opuwo

Namibian Government addresses misconceptions on proposed mining stakes