The Kolomela mine orebodies comprise hard, high-grade, conglomeratic and laminated haematite orebodies. The ores have been preserved as three separate orebodies within basinal and graben structures up to 2km long, 400m wide and 300m deep.

The Welgevonden deposit, also known as the Sishen South deposit, is located on the southern extremity of the Maremane Dome, 9 km southwest of the town of Postmasburg and 65 km south of Sishen Mine. The deposit is made up of several smaller ore bodies and is currently mined at Kolomela Mine under the ownership of Kumba Iron Ore.

The only BIF present at Welgevonden appears to be that of the Kuruman Iron Formation, with the Griquatown Iron Formation having been removed by erosion. The main structural characteristic in the west of the Welgevonden area is the Wolhaarkop Dome, an overturned anticline replicating the larger Maremane Dome, which occurs in the east of the deposit.The ore bodies are intensely folded and faulted, and are preserved within erosional remnants that are not as continuous, but are of similar structural types to those encountered at Sishen.

Two tectono-stratigraphic settings for the ore bodies have been defined by Alchin and Botha: a palaeosinkhole-hosted setting applicable to the Ploegfontein, Leeuwfontein and Klipbankfontein ore bodies; and a synclinal basin setting applicable to the Welgevonden and Kapstevel ore bodies. Marginal deformational effects, thought to be related to the ~2.2 Ga Kheis event, occur towards the west of the deposit and decrease rapidly to the east. The scattered nature of the ore bodies at Welgevonden could be due to the removal of upper lithologies by erosion and/or due to smaller, less connected underlying palaeosinkhole, pseudo-graben and synclinal structures. The Sishen South deposit is also much smaller than the main ore body at Sishen and early exploration estimates put its mineable ore reserves at approximately 25% of those at Sishen.

The Kolomela Mine is an open pit iron ore mine which produces approximately 9 million tonnes of iron ore per annum (Mtpa). The current life of mine (LOM) plan is until 2038 and involves mining from the existing three pits, namely the Leeuwfontein Pit, the Klipbankfontein Pit and the Kapstevel Pit. Existing processing facilities involve a 9 Mtpa direct shipping ore (DSO) operation, including crushing and screening of recovered ore material into stockpiles of ‘lump’ and ‘fines’ for transportation by rail to Saldanha Bay.

Kolomela mine is primarily a direct shipping ore operation where Ore Reserves are crushed and screened to deliver Saleable Product at the required top sizes. The mine commissioned a small-scale modular dense media separation (DMS) plant in 2016 to treat lower Fe-grade ore; scheduled throughput through this DMS plant has been increased in the 2017 LoM plan, resulting in a lowering of the overall average yield.