Geometallurgy offers significant value to the minerals industry and as a result, Namakwa Sands, a South African heavy mineral sands operation, has implemented a systematic geometallurgical strategy that is integrated with its existing mineral resource management processes. This paper reports on the advanced ore characterisation of the Namakwa Sands deposit, and aims to define the constituent ore types in terms of bulk geochemistry and mineralogy, including the mineral characteristics that could possibly affect recovery. A novel geometallurgical template model was developed at Namakwa Sands to study and quantify the penalties that deleterious mineral characteristics could potentially impose on the recovery of the ore minerals. In addition to enhanced mineral resource definition, this geometallurgical template model allows mineral resource scoring and ranking based on potential mineral recoveries. The generic structure of the geometallurgical template model makes it potentially viable for general application in the mineral sands industry. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.