ASX Nickel Stocks: 5 Biggest Nickel-mining Companies in 2026

1. BHP (ASX:BHP)

Market cap: AU$304.94 billion
Share price: AU$58.87

Not only is BHP the largest diversified miner by market cap globally, but the company’s Nickel West asset is one of Australia's largest primary nickel operations.

Part of its Western Australia Nickel business, Nickel West is a fully integrated network consisting of the Mount Keith and Leinster mines, with downstream upgraders at the Kalgoorlie nickel smelter and Kwinana nickel refinery.

Western Australia Nickel also includes the West Musgrave project, which it acquired as part of its takeover of OZ Minerals in May 2023. The site is highly prospective for nickel and copper mineralization and, according to a 2022 technical report by OZ, hosts probable contained nickel reserves of 840,000 tonnes.

Activities at Nickel West and West Musgrave were halted in October 2024 due to low nickel prices and a nickel market with a supply overhang. Before this, Nickel West produced 69,400 tonnes of total nickel in the calendar year 2024 and 81,400 tonnes in 2023.

In calendar year 2025, Nickel West produced no nickel concentrates and was limited to just 2,600 tonnes of intermediate and nickel by-products produced at the start of the year.

In the closure announcement, BHP indicated it would review the mine’s suspension of operations by February 2027, with potential outcomes of its decision including divestment of the asset or maintaining the site's closure.

2. IGO (ASX:IGO)

Market cap: AU$5.62 billion
Share price: AU$7.21

IGO, historically one of Australia’s top nickel producers, is currently producing nickel at its Nova mine in Western Australia. However, its nickel business has been impacted by low prices and depleting reserves over the last few years. The company remains a significant Australian lithium company due to its stake in the Greenbushes lithium mine.

In 2024, the company placed its Forrestania nickel operations on care and maintenance and announced plans to sell the asset to Medallion Metals (ASX:MM8) as the site's mineral reserves approached depletion. The sale was completed in February 2026.

IGO retained the rights to explore, develop and mine the site for nickel and lithium, and will receive an up to 1.5 percent net smelter royalty on future gold production by Medallion.

IGO’s primary nickel operation is now the Nova nickel-copper mine in Western Australia, which has been in operation since 2017. Like the Forrestania mine, Nova is approaching depletion and is expected to reach the end of mining life in late calendar 2026.

In IGO's fiscal Q3 2026 ended March 31, Nova produced 4,202 tonnes of nickel, up 11 percent over Q2, bringing its fiscal year-to-date nickel production to 11,421 tonnes.

IGO also owns the Cosmos nickel project, including the Odysseus underground mine, which it gained through its 2022 acquisition of Western Areas. IGO placed it on care and maintenance in June 2024, but intends to protect the optionality to restart operations in the future.

3. Nickel Industries (ASX:NIC)

Market cap: AU$3.99 billion
Share price: AU$0.88

Nickel Industries is an established nickel miner and refiner with a portfolio of assets located in Indonesia. Due to lower operating costs, shared infrastructure at the Indonesia Morowali and Weda Bay Industrial Parks, and a the addition of high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL), the company’s operations haven’t been hit as hard by low nickel prices and market surpluses as other producers on the list.

Its main assets include its 80 percent owned Hengjaya mine and its rotary kiln-electric furnace (RKEF) operations — Hengjaya Nickel, Ranger, Angel and Oracle — which process saprolite ore from Hengjaya into nickel pig iron.

The company also processes Hengjaya's limonite ore into mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) containing nickel and cobalt for batteries using HPAL.

It has an interest in two HPAL operations: a 10 percent stake in Huayue, which hosts a nameplate capacity of 60,000 tonnes of nickel annually, and a 46 percent ownership of Excelsior, which is in the commissioning phase. When fully ramped up, Excelsior will produce 72,000 tonnes of contained nickel equivalent per year.

According to the company’s 2025 annual report, released on April 24, Hengjaya's total ore production came in at 19.16 million wet tonnes in the last calendar year, well above its RKAB sales quota of 9 million wet tonnes. The company stockpiled the extra ore to sell to its refining operations for processing this year.

Its refined output last year from its RKEF operations totaled 1.05 million tonnes of nickel pig iron containing an equivalent of 124,966 tonnes of nickel metal, and MHP from the HPAL operations contained attributable nickel and cobalt of 8,503 tonnes and 802 tonnes respectively.

On February 14, Nickel Industries announced it received an increased RKAB sales approval for 2026 of 14.3 million wet tonnes, supporting its stockpiling strategy.

4. Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN)

Market cap: AU$498.56 million
Share price: AU$1.225

Chalice Mining is an exploration and development company advancing its flagship Gonneville palladium-nickel-copper project in Western Australia, which hosts Australia's largest platinum group elements (PGE) deposit. The company discovered the greenfield property's main deposit in 2020.

Chalice released its pre-feasibility study for Gonneville in December 2025 evaluating a two-phase open-pit development plan with a 23 year mine life, with potential for an underground expansion in the future. If things go to plan, first production is anticipated in 2030, following the completion of a feasibility study in H1 of calendar 2027, environmental approvals and a final investment decision in H1 2028, and up to two years of engineering and construction.

Stage 1 would last four years, with average annual processing capacity of 1 million tonnes per year of oxide and 4 million tonnes of sulphide. Stage 2, carried out between years five and 23, would see bulk open-pit mining and increased sulphide processing capacity of 12 million tonnes per year, planned to increase to 14 million tonnes following de-bottlenecking of the processing plant in year nine.

Over the 23 year mine life, the company expects to produce an annual average of 220,000 combined ounces of palladium, platinum and gold (3E); 7,000 tonnes of nickel; 8,000 tonnes of copper; and 700 tonnes of cobalt.

As for the economics, the report indicates a post-tax net present value of AU$1 billion, with an internal rate of return of 21 percent and a payback period of 2.7 years at a base case of a palladium price of US$1,300 per ounce and a nickel price of US$18,750 per tonne.

The maiden ore reserve for Gonneville stands at 260 million tonnes of probable ore reserves at average grades of 0.16 percent nickel for 400,000 tonnes of contained nickel, plus 7.1 million combined ounces of palladium, platinum and gold (3E) grading 0.86 grams per tonne. The project also hosts a total measured, indicated and inferred resource of 960,000 tonnes of nickel.

5. St George Mining (ASX:SGQ)

Market cap: AU$426.56 million
Share price: AU$0.091

St George Mining is a diversified exploration and development company with a portfolio of critical minerals assets, including the Mount Alexander nickel-lithium project in Western Australia and the Araxá niobium and rare earths project in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The Mount Alexander project consists of a contiguous block of six granted exploration licenses with an additional two exploration licenses south-east of the core package. The site's E29/638 license, a 75/25 joint venture between St George and IGO, hosts the project's four core nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE targets: Cathedrals, Stricklands, Investigators and Radar.

Nickel and copper sulphide mineralization at the property was first discovered by BHP, which encountered grades of up to 5.05 percent nickel over 3.95 metres at a depth of 91.4 metres.

Continued exploration by St George has extended the mineralized strike zone to more than 5.5 kilometres, and metallurgical work carried out by the company indicates that the project has the potential to produce concentrates with a nickel grade of 18 percent.

Most recently, the company has pivoted its focus to its Araxá niobium and rare earth project amid low nickel and lithium prices.

In its half-year report released on March 13, St George Mining stated that it was planning exploration programs for its non-Araxá projects, and would make announcements as details were finalized.

It also noted that nickel and lithium prices improved significantly in late 2025, which provides it opportunities to create further value from its Western Australian projects.

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