The Venetia diamond mine, which opened in 1992, is De Beers Consolidated Mines' flagship operation. The mine is situated 80km from Musina (formerly Messina) in Limpopo Province, and considered to be South Africa’s largest diamond producer.

Venetia is a conventional open-pit mine. Surface mining is expected to carry on for some 20 years and, as the mine becomes deeper, the feasibility of underground operations will be investigated. The current targeted pit floor level is at a depth of 400m. A re-evaluation of the pit design undertaken during 1998 reduced the waste-stripping requirements but Venetia plans to increase waste removal over the next three years from 42Mt to 70Mt in order to create jobs. 

After waste stripping to expose the kimberlite, the ore is blasted and loaded into trucks, hauled to a crusher (which the engineering firm Bateman is currently replacing), reduced in size and conveyed to a primary stockpile. Crushed ore is then conveyed to the main treatment plant for processing. 

Inside the treatment plant, the kimberlite is further crushed, washed and screened into different size fractions. Dense-medium separation is used to produce a diamondiferous concentrate, which is then subject to X-ray fluorescence sorting to separate diamonds from residual waste. After drying, final hand-sorting recovers the diamonds, which are sent to the offices of the Central Selling Organisation (CSO) in Kimberley for classification into some 5,000 categories based on combinations of size, shape, colour and quality.