Elevate Uranium (ASX:EL8) said the construction of the U-pgrade demonstration plant is on track for completion by the middle of the year, which will be used for ore from the Koppies uranium project in Namibia, according to a Thursday Australian bourse filing.

The plant is designed to confirm, at a scalable size and operating on a continuous basis, that the U-pgrade process can remove gangue waste material and concentrate uranium mineral into a low-mass, high-grade concentrate before leaching.

Fremantle Metallurgy was awarded the construction contract. It will undergo factory acceptance testing in Perth, be containerized, shipped to Namibia, re-assembled, and used to process at least 60 tonnes of Koppies ore.

It is also conducting resource growth drilling at the Namib IV target, and it plans to undertake future in-fill drilling to identify a maiden resource within the year.

Its shares fell 2% in early trading on Thursday.