With its diverse applications in both technology and industry, nickel is a metal that will never go out of style.
Nickel is commonly used in alloys to create stainless steel, but more recently has found a modern use: batteries. As the electric vehicle trend gains steam, the base metal is in high demand for its role in lithium-ion batteries.
However, nickel has encountered much volatility in the past few years. After spiking to record highs in 2022, the nickel price has been on a downward trend on oversupply from top-producing country Indonesia and economic uncertainty dampening demand.
Tariffs could further disrupt the nickel market going forward, but whether that's to the upside or the downside remains to be seen.
Against that backdrop, some Australian nickel companies are still making moves. Here the Investing News Network has listed the top nickel stocks on the ASX by year-to-date gains. Data was gathered using TradingView's stock screener on July 23, 2025, and all companies had market caps above AU$5 million at that time. Read on to learn more about them.
Year-to-date gain: 71.43 percent
Market cap: AU$9.98 million
Share price: AU$0.012
Pivotal Metals is an exploration and development-stage company has two properties in Québec, Canada: the Belleterre-Angliers Greenstone Belt (BAGB) project and its flagship advanced-exploration Horden Lake project. Both properties contain copper, nickel and platinum group metals mineralization.
As of its newest mineral resource update released in April 2025, Horden Lake hosts a JORC-compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate of 407,000 tonnes of contained copper equivalent from 37 million tonnes of ore at 1.1 percent copper equivalent, which comprises copper, nickel, palladium, gold and more. Its contained nickel resource stands at 72,000 tonnes.
Pivotal announced its 2025 field programs at both properties in February. At Horden Lake, the company announced plans for 1,500 meters in diamond drilling along with the final stages of metallurgical test work to update the resource estimate.
At BAGB, the company is assessing targets for its planned Q2 field program across three project areas. According to the company, the “targets leverage extremely high-grade Ni-Cu-PGM from historical drilling on each project, as well as known high grade gold and VMS potential.
Shortly after, Pivotal announced that its fixed loop time domain electromagnetic (FLTEM) survey at Horden Lake defined large undrilled conductors extending along strike and down plunge of the deposit.
The company released metallurgical test results from Horden Lake in March that demonstrated total copper recoveries of 87 to 94 percent with clean copper concentrates produced that grading 22 to 28 percent copper. In addition, the test work produced high-grade clean nickel concentrates grading approximately 12 percent nickel with the potential for nickel recoveries exceeding 50 percent at expected resource sulphur grades.
The new mineral resource estimate discussed above raised Horden Lake's copper equivalent resource in a single pit shell to 341,000 tonnes, an increase of 37 percent over the previous estimate.
Shares of Pivot started the year at AU$0.007 and hit a year-to-date high of AU$0.012 twice, on June 16 and July 23.
Year-to-date gain: 20.59 percent
Market cap: C$85.22 million
Share price: C$0.41
Ardea Resources is developing its wholly owned Kalgoorlie nickel project (KNP) in Western Australia, which includes the Goongarrie Hub deposit. The company has said the project “hosts the largest nickel-cobalt resource in the developed world.” It is currently working toward a planned definitive feasibility study (DFS).
A 2023 prefeasibility study for the KNP Goongarrie Hub shows an ore reserve of 194.1 million tonnes at 0.7 percent nickel and 0.05 percent cobalt, resulting in 1.36 million tonnes of contained nickel and 99,000 tonnes of contained cobalt. The study indicates an open-pit operation with a 40 year life and annual output of 30,000 tonnes of nickel and 2,000 tonnes of cobalt.
In February 2024, Ardea shared that Sumitomo Metal Mining (TSE:5713) and Mitsubishi (TSE:8058) agreed on AU$98.5 million in funding and a scope of work for the KNP Goongarrie Hub DFS. The DFS is slated for completion in the second half of 2025.
In its quarterly operations report for the quarter ended 31 December 2024, Ardea provided an update on the progress it's making toward completing the DFS. This includes bench-scale metallurgical testing, process plant development, geology and resource workflows. The news, released on January 28, helped boost the company's stock price by 14 percent to AU$0.40 per share on January 28.
The following month, Ardea announced that it had awarded the hydrogen sulphide plant work package to engineering services firm Lycopodium. The plant will be used to precipitate mixed sulphide precipitate, which is a high purity nickel and cobalt sulphide product. MHP is a precursor for the production of electrolytic nickel, nickel powder and nickel sulphate for the battery industry.
Ardea shared an update on the work being done towards the DFS on June 23, including the completion of a drill program and further progress on the processing plant.
On July 4, Ardea announced that the consortium of Sumitomo and Mitsubishi had reached 50 percent of the AU$98.5 million in funding, a milestone that earned them a 17.5 percent interest in the KNP.
Shares of Ardea reached a year-to-date high of AU$0.48 on February 24.
Year-to-date gain: 12.37 percent
Market cap: C$3.94 billion
Share price: C$5.36
IGO is a diversified metals producer, but its main focus is on its wholly owned Nova nickel-copper-cobalt operation, which is located in Western Australia's Fraser Range and primarily produces nickel.
IGO also owns two other nickel operations, Forrestania and Cosmos, which were placed on care and maintenance in 2024 due to nickel market conditions. The company is maintaining the option to restart operations based on the nickel market's performance.
The company also has a 49 percent interest in the Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia joint venture with Tianqi Lithium (SZSE:002466,HKEX:9696). The JV holds a 51 percent interest in the Greenbushes lithium mine, which is also located in Western Australia.
The company's fiscal Q3 2025 report highlighted nickel production from Nova of 4,179 tonnes, up 23 percent from the previous quarter on improved mining volumes, grades and plant availability. According to the release, the planned life of mine is nearing its end, with final production expected in late 2026.
Shares in IGO hit a year-to-date high of AU$5.36 on July 23.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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