This operation mines the Baken palaeochannel, an ancient riverbed containing alluvial diamonds washed downstream from kimberlite (diamond-bearing volcanic rock) pipes millions of years ago.

The Baken area is predominantly underlain by the basement rocks of the Holgat Formation, comprising interbedded dolomites, metapelites and arenites.

The Baken paleo-channel is a classic proto-aged oxbow feature which has been cut-off from the present-day Orange River valley. It represents a remnant of a meandering fluvial system caused by a change in the direction of the river. It is characterised by the deposition of heavy minerals in areas where local conditions like obstructions or depressions, rising bedrock, junctions of crosschannels, etcetera, resulted in a loss of energy. It is filled with an upward fining sequence of sediments correlated with the Arries Drift Gravel formation, comprising a coarse-grained diamondiferous gravel unit (basal gravel) at its base, overlain by often lenticular beds of more sandy gravel (suspended gravel).

Ore is mined using open pit mining methods from numerous small, localised alluvial gravel resources. Mining is carried out with open pit truck and shovel operations from the diamondiferous gravels after removal of overburden. The general method employed is strip mining. The paleo-channels and terraces which host the diamondiferous gravels vary in width and overburden depth and, as such are
subject to varying degrees of continuity for active mining faces. Mining also encompasses rehandling and reprocessing of remnant tailings and stockpiled material.

Baken and Bloeddrif are fixed process plant operations. The Somiluana Mine and WCR operations all have modular plants that can be moved as the production centres change.

LOR processing operations comprise two washing and concentration plants; the Baken Central Plant (BCP), coupled to the Baken Central Recovery Plant (BCRP) at Baken Mine and a single plant treating fresh gravel and tailings at Bloeddrif.

The BCP was commissioned in 2001 and has a nominal 1,350 tonnes per hour (tph) capacity, also producing a final DMS concentrate. Screened fractions report to the DMS plants, from where DMS sinks report to the BCRP, split into three size fractions before being fed through separate XRay sorting machines, with the X-Ray concentrates gravitating to a secure hand sorting facility.