The Bushveld Complex is approximately 2.060 million years old and is a mafic to ultramafic rock sequence. The Rustenburg Layered Suite (RLS) is the world's largest known mafic igneous layered intrusion containing about 80% of the world's known reserves of PGM's (Crowson, 2001 quoted in Cawthorn, 2010). In addition to PGM's, extensive deposits of iron, tin, chromium, titanium, vanadium, copper, nickel, and cobalt also occur. The Bushveld Complex extends approximately 450km east to west and approximately 250km north to south. It underlies an area of some 67,000km2, spanning parts of Limpopo, North West, Gauteng, and Mpumalanga Provinces.

Interlayered in the Upper Critical Zone of the Bushveld Complex's RLS, the Merensky and Upper Group No. 2 (UG2) Reefs are preserved as narrow tabular structures. The Rustenburg Operations are situated on the western limb of the Bushveld Complex and produce the PGMs and associated Base Metals from the mining and processing of the Merensky and UG2 Reefs.

The Main Zone predominantly comprises gabbro-norite and norite rock types, whereas, in the Upper Critical Zone, pyroxenite, norite, anorthosite, and chromitite lithologies are found.

The Upper Critical Zone stratigraphy of the RLS, which contains the units of economic interest, the Merensky and UG2 Reefs, comprises well-developed cyclic units divided into six sub-units as follows:
- Bastard Pyroxenite;
- Merensky Reef;
- Merensky Footwall;
- UG ........

The Rustenburg Operations are large established PGM mines comprising three operating vertical shafts and two declines, six vertical shafts on care and maintenance, two plants processing underground ore, two plants processing tailings, two active tailings storage facilities and three inactive tailings storage facilities.

All the permanent infrastructure required to access and mine is already established and in use. The mining methods employed at Rustenburg Operations vary between shafts and consist primarily of mechanised and conventional scattered breast mining methods. The conventional method incorporates in-stope crush pillars and regional pillars to maintain the stability of the workings. All pillar mining undergoes a continual risk assessment process and those areas that currently pose a risk are excluded from the Mineral Reserves.

The mining methods employed at the Rustenburg Operations vary between shafts and can be subdivided as follows:

Conventional Scattered Breast Mining: Khuseleka, Thembelani and Siphumelele
The stoping method on the Merensky Reef and the UG2 Reef at Khuseleka, Thembelani and Siphumelele is conventional scattered breast mining. This method incorporates in-stope crush pillars and regional pillars to maintain the stability of the workings. It allows for greater flexibility in the mining of moderately dipping narrow tabular reefs and the negotiation of geological structures. It involves a development grid followed ........

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