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to read the previous top nickel stocks article.
Nickel has had an interesting year, with prices hitting their lowest point in March at US$11,055 per tonne on the back of the coronavirus pandemic.
The metal rebounded to US$13,888 as Elon Musk called for more mining of the
base metal
, which is a necessary component of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
Since then, the nickel price has soared even further, rising as high as US$16,475 as of mid-December. The nickel market has been driven by higher demand from the stainless steel sector, in particular in China and Indonesia, as well as anticipated buying from EV battery manufacturers.
Despite the market volatility, some nickel-focused companies have done well this year, with their share prices seeing major increases over the course of the year so far.
Below, the Investing News Network profiles the three top nickel stocks with year-to-date gains on the TSX and TSXV. All year-to-date and share price information was obtained on December 10, 2020, from
TradingView
, and all top nickel stocks listed had market caps above C$10 million at that time.
1.
FPX Nickel
(TSXV:
FPX
)
Current share price: C$0.59; year-to-date gain: 268.75 percent
Top nickel stock FPX Nickel is focused on the exploration and development of the Decar nickel-
iron
district, located in Central British Columbia, and other occurrences of the same unique style of naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy mineralization known as awaruite.
The company kicked off the year by
releasing successful leach testing results
for the high-grade nickel concentrates at its project. It has confirmed nickel recoveries of up to 99.5 percent in producing a high-concentration nickel-
cobalt
chemical solution suitable for the EV battery supply chain.
In March, FPX Nickel closed a
private placement
for $1.5 million. The following month, the company said it
planned to complete
a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the Baptiste deposit in the Decar district in Q3 or Q4. As promised, the PEA was
delivered in September
, showing an after-tax net present value of US$1.7 billion and a four year payback period. The mine life is set at 35 years and C1 operating costs came in at US$2.74 per pound of nickel.
The news sent shares of FPX Nickel to their year high of C$0.84. The company’s share price has made its way up from C$0.16 in January to C$0.59 as of December 10.
2. Talon Metals (TSX:
TLO
)
Current share price: C$0.34; year-to-date gain: 126.67 percent
Talon Metals is focused on producing nickel responsibly for the EV industry. The company’s high-grade Tamarack nickel-
copper
-cobalt project is located in Minnesota, US; it is comprised of the Tamarack North project and the Tamarack South project.
Talon started the year with an
exploration program
at Tamarack, releasing an
updated PEA
in March, which increased the overall tonnage and mine life compared to the initial assessment. The same month, the company
released its 2019 results
, posting a net loss for the year.
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In May, Talon
published drill results
from its winter program, and also
reported a net loss
for the first quarter of 2020. In June, the company said it had intersected its
highest nickel and copper grades
to date.
Later in the summer, Talon kicked off a
drilling campaign
at Tamarack in order to rapidly grow the
resource
. In late August,
metallurgical results
confirmed the potential to use nickel concentrates from Tamarack for the EV and stainless steel markets. The next month,
Talon intercepted
massive and disseminated sulfides at shallow depths outside the current resource area at Tamarack; further exploration continues to
point to a new zone
of nickel mineralization.
Shares of Talon reached a year high of C$0.44 on November 19. Talon has seen its share price increase from C$0.15 at the start of 2020 to its December 10 level of C$0.34.
3.
Canada Nickel Company
(TSXV:
CNC
)
Current share price: C$1.85; year-to-date gain: 105.56 percent
Canada Nickel Company is advancing its 100 percent owned Crawford nickel-cobalt sulfide discovery. It has large-scale potential and is located in the Timmins mining camp, adjacent to major infrastructure.
It’s been a busy year for Canada Nickel, which
started trading
on the TSXV in February — the same month it released a
resource estimate
for its asset. Following an
oversubscribed private placement
, the company
announced
multiple
palladium
–
platinum
discovery zones in May.
Later in Q2, the company
started working
on a PEA for Crawford, and it shared an updated resource estimate in October; at the the time, it said the PEA would be delivered by the end of the year.
The third quarter of the year saw Canada Nickel
create a wholly owned subsidiary
, NetZero Metals, to begin research and development on a processing facility with the goal of utilizing existing
technologies
to produce zero-carbon nickel, cobalt and
iron
ore products. Additionally, the company continued to release positive drilling results throughout the
summer
and
fall
. A
third new discovery
at Crawford was announced in October, and the company
listed on the OTCQB
the same month.
Canada Nickel’s opening share price when it listed on the TSXV was C$0.25, meaning it’s risen nearly 650 percent from then to December 10; it touched a year high of C$3 on July 28.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: Canada Nickel Company and FPX Nickel are clients of the Investing News Network. This article is not paid-for content.
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