The mineral was discovered in 1972 and received its name from its discovery area, the Mooihoek mine in Transvaal, South Africa.
[3] Mooihoekite is an opaque mineral which shows weak anisotropism in polished section under reflected light microscopy.
[3] It is found in massive sulfide from pipe-shaped dunite pegmatite in the norite zone of the Bushveld igneous complex in South Africa.
It has also been found in troctolite from the basal Duluth gabbro in Minnesota, US; in the Talnakh area, Norilsk region, western Siberia; at Krzemianka, Poland; in the Malanjkhand copper-molybdenum deposit, Madhya Pradesh, India; and the Stillwater igneous complex in Montana, US.
[3] Mooihoekite, chalcopyrite, talnakhite, and haycockite all play key roles in the study of ore genesis and beneficiation.