Gold (Au) deposits in Zimbabwe are clustered on the Zimbabwean craton and mostly associated with the greenstone belts. These greenstone belts are thought to have formed on the basement of older granitic gneisses and are grouped as the Sebakwian, Bulawayan and Shamvaian groups. The Renco mine and surrounding deposits are not located in the greenstones, but rather on the Limpopo mobile belt. The gold here is, however, thought to have been remobilised during the deformation of the belt from the greenstones.

The Renco mine is the only gold mine not located on a greenstone belt in Zimbabwe – it is located in the Limpopo mobile belt. Gold is thought to have been remobilised from one of the adjacent greenstone belts during this deformation period and deposited in zones of structural weakness at Renco. Four types of reefs have historically been exploited, namely the steep, named after its nearvertical orientation, the orange, green and red reefs, which were arbitrarily given these names to distinguish them. The red, green and orange reefs have a far shallower dip and the red reef has been exploited to the greatest extent.

Mining at Renco is carried out using the long-wall stoping mining method.

The plant at Renco is old and in need of refurbishment. Although it was only constructed in 1982, it was second-hand at the time. It is a typical CIL processing plant. Ore is crushed, milled and passed through a thickener and a pre-conditioner and is then passed through six leaching tanks. After that, it passes through flotation tanks, roughers and scavengers to produce a concentrate. Gold is smelted on site and transported to Harare.