Beatrix is a deep level underground gold mine located along the northern and southwestern margins of the Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa. This mine is typical of the many Witwatersrand Basin operations, which have been the primary contributors to South Africa’s production of a significant portion of the world’s recorded gold output since 1886.

The orebodies at Beatrix are laterally continuous with relatively long-range predictability. This lends to clear patterns of mineralisation governed by sedimentary characteristics.

The Beatrix Reef (BR) was originally exploited as the main orebody, but has since changed, with the main production coming from the VS5 (Elsburg Formation), the Aandenk (AAR) and Kalkoenkrans (KKR) Composite Reefs.

In general, the Composite VS5/AAR Reefs ranges between 130cm and 350cm in width. The orebody is shallow dipping at 10º – 15º, with typical open fold structures. In most cases the reefs are deemed to be bottom loaded, with most of the gold grade concentrated along the basal contact.

Beatrix has three vertical shaft complexes (one sub-shaft) and two mineral processing plants. Supporting infrastructure to service the operating shaft sections is also in place:
• South Section (1 Shaft) – operational
• North Section (3 Shaft) – operational
• West Section (4 Shaft) – operational

Mining method:
• Conventional breast mining (virgin areas) – 99%
• Conventional breast mining (remnants and pillar extraction) – 1%

Beatrix is principally an underground mine with nominal surface reserves represented by surface rock dumps (SRDs) accumulated during the operating history of the mine.

Gold mining began at Beatrix in 1985 and at Oryx (Beatrix 4 Shaft, also known as West Section) in 1993.The existing scope of operations is the result of the consolidation of the adjacent Beatrix and Oryx mines on 1 July 2002. Beatrix has three operating shaft systems with two ventilation shafts to provide additional upcast and downcast ventilation capacity.

Beatrix, a shallow to intermediate-depth operation, mining at depths of between 700m and 2,200m below surface, exploits the Beatrix Reef at shafts 1 and 3, and the Kalkoenkrans Reef at 4 Shaft.

Beatrix is serviced by two metallurgical plants. Processing occurs by way of carbon in leach (CIL) and carbon in pulp (CIP) treatment at the No 1 and 2 plants respectively:
- Beatrix 1 plant – operational, 240 tpd design capacity;
- Beatrix 2 plant – under care and maintenance, 130 tpd design capacity.