Mitsubishi Corporation is preparing to leave one of British Columbia’s largest undeveloped nickel projects, adding another sign of how dramatically the investment climate around electric-vehicle battery metals has changed. The Japanese trading giant has elected to sell its roughly 15% interest in the Turnagain nickel-cobalt project back to Vancouver-based Giga Metals for nominal consideration.
The transaction is expected to leave Giga with full ownership of the northern B.C. project once it closes, currently anticipated around October 12. Mitsubishi stressed that its decision was not a negative assessment of Turnagain itself. Instead, the company pointed to a broader portfolio review and its assessment of North American nickel and EV markets since investing in 2022. That distinction matters: Turnagain remains enormous, but the market around it looks considerably different than it did four years ago.
Mitsubishi’s Exit Will Put Turnagain Back Under One Owner
Mitsubishi exercised a contractual “Put Right” under the Turnagain joint-venture agreement, agreeing to sell its approximately 15% interest back to Giga Metals for nominal consideration. Subject to the joint-venture terms, the repurchase is expected to close on or around October 12, 2026. Once completed, Giga would effectively regain 100% ownership of the project through Hard Creek Nickel Corp., the company established to hold and advance Turnagain.
The language accompanying the departure is notable. Kota Ikenishi, general manager of Mitsubishi’s Battery Minerals Department, said the decision was not a reflection on Turnagain or the Giga team. Mitsubishi instead attributed it to a broader portfolio review and its assessment of North American nickel and EV markets since the original investment. For Giga, the immediate result is simpler ownership. At the same time, it means losing a major global trading company that had brought mining experience, financing capability and potential downstream connections to the project.
The Partnership Began With an C$8-Million Investment in 2022
Mitsubishi’s involvement dates to August 2022, when the companies agreed to create Hard Creek Nickel Corp. to advance Turnagain. The deal closed on September 1 of that year. Mitsubishi paid C$8 million for a 15% equity interest, while Giga contributed the Turnagain assets in exchange for the remaining 85%. Giga remained the operator, with Mitsubishi supporting development through the joint-venture structure.
The C$8 million was intended to help fund a pre-feasibility study, giving the partnership a clearly defined first milestone. That work was ultimately completed in 2023 and provided a much more detailed picture of what a future Turnagain mine could look like. Mitsubishi’s involvement therefore lasted through an important period of technical de-risking. Its departure does not undo that engineering work or erase the mineral resource. What changes is the corporate structure behind the project — and potentially the mix of partners that would be needed to finance construction if Turnagain eventually advances beyond studies and permitting.
Turnagain Remains an Enormous Undeveloped Nickel Resource
Turnagain is located roughly 65 kilometres east of Dease Lake in northern British Columbia, within the traditional territories of the Tahltan Nation and Kaska Dena. The project is unusual not because nickel is scarce globally, but because very large undeveloped nickel-sulphide deposits are comparatively limited. Turnagain also contains cobalt and smaller quantities of platinum-group metals, giving it potential exposure to several critical-mineral markets.
Its scale is substantial. The 2023 technical work reported approximately 1.574 billion tonnes of measured and indicated mineral resources grading 0.210% nickel, containing about 3.38 million tonnes of nickel. Proven and probable mineral reserves totalled approximately 950.5 million tonnes grading 0.205% nickel and 0.013% cobalt. The pre-feasibility mine plan envisioned roughly 30 years of operations, with average annual nickel-and-cobalt production of about 37,288 tonnes in concentrate during the main full-production years. Mitsubishi’s exit changes ownership, but none of those geological numbers disappears with it.
The Project’s Economics Show Why Nickel Prices Matter So Much
The 2023 pre-feasibility study produced positive economics, but it also demonstrated how sensitive a project this large can be to commodity assumptions. Using a long-term nickel price of US$9.75 per pound, or roughly US$21,500 per tonne, the study calculated a post-tax net present value of US$574 million at a 7% discount rate and a post-tax internal rate of return of 11.4%. Initial capital spending was estimated at approximately US$1.89 billion.
The sensitivity analysis tells an equally important story. When the nickel-price assumption was reduced by 15%, the study’s post-tax NPV dropped to just US$21 million and its projected internal rate of return fell to 7.2%. That does not mean those lower-case economics represent current project economics; the study dates from 2023 and uses its own defined assumptions. It does show why commodity prices have such influence over investment decisions. A large resource can remain technically viable while becoming much more difficult to finance when investors expect weaker margins.
Global Nickel Supply Has Become Much More Competitive
Turnagain’s challenge sits inside a much larger shift in the nickel industry. Indonesia has expanded production and processing rapidly and now accounts for more than 60% of global nickel output, according to recent Reuters reporting. That growth has fundamentally changed the economics facing proposed mines in countries with higher construction, labour and regulatory costs. Indonesia has attempted to manage output more closely in 2026, but exchange inventories and concerns about continuing oversupply have kept the market cautious.
The International Energy Agency has also documented the investment consequences. Capital spending by companies focused on battery materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt declined around 20% in 2025, while exploration spending for lithium and nickel fell roughly 45%. Those reductions came despite strong long-term demand expectations. The IEA still expects nickel demand to grow substantially through 2040, driven partly by energy technologies. The problem for developers is timing: mines require enormous amounts of money years before anyone knows precisely what nickel prices or battery technologies will look like when production begins.
North America’s EV Market Is Growing Unevenly Rather Than in a Straight Line
Mitsubishi specifically referenced its assessment of the North American EV market, where the picture has become unusually complicated. In the United States, approximately 1.5 million electric cars were sold in 2025, slightly below 2024 levels. EVs represented just under 10% of U.S. new-car sales for the year, but fourth-quarter sales were about 45% lower than a year earlier after federal purchase tax credits ended. Changes to fuel-economy and emissions policies have also altered automakers’ incentives.
Canada has shown similar volatility, although the most recent numbers are improving. New Canadian zero-emission vehicle registrations fell 34.7% in 2025 and represented 9.5% of new registrations, down from 14.6% in 2024. By the second quarter of 2026, however, registrations had rebounded to 58,811 vehicles, up 26.7% year over year and representing 10.7% of new registrations. The result is not an EV market disappearing, but one becoming harder for miners, battery companies and automakers to forecast several years in advance.
Giga Is Already Looking Beyond Nickel to Turnagain’s Copper Potential
Giga’s response to uncertain nickel markets has not been to abandon Turnagain. Instead, management has been expanding exploration toward copper, platinum and palladium targets elsewhere in the enormous ultramafic complex. The company says about 80% of the system remains unexplored or underexplored, leaving large areas outside the established nickel-cobalt resource where different styles of mineralization could potentially be found.
Much of the current attention is centred on the Attic Zone. In June, Giga launched a property-scale geophysical program involving three magnetotelluric lines covering approximately 17 kilometres and a 504-line-kilometre HeliSAM electromagnetic survey. The program covers roughly 6.5 kilometres by 4.5 kilometres and is designed to identify conductive targets at greater depths than earlier surveys could reach. The work was expected to guide exploration into the fall of 2026. That copper focus is particularly significant because broader mining investment has recently been more favourable toward copper than several battery metals.
Turnagain’s Low-Carbon Design Remains Part of Its Investment Case
One of Turnagain’s longstanding selling points is its proposed carbon intensity. The 2023 pre-feasibility study estimated average Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of approximately 57,920 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, or around 1.8 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per tonne of nickel produced in concentrate. The design incorporates access to hydroelectric power and a trolley-assisted mining fleet, which the study estimated would reduce emissions compared with a more conventional diesel-heavy design.
Giga has also continued investigating whether Turnagain’s ultramafic rocks could permanently bind carbon dioxide through mineralization. In January 2026, Giga and Arca Climate Technologies signed a 10-year agreement allowing Arca to evaluate Turnagain waste rock and future tailings for carbon-removal applications. The companies said the geological material could potentially provide capacity to remove as much as 220 million tonnes of atmospheric CO2, although that remains a development-stage estimate requiring sampling, pilot testing and technical-economic evaluation rather than an established operating result.
Canada Still Considers Nickel Strategically Important
Mitsubishi’s decision comes as Canadian governments continue trying to encourage more domestic critical-mineral development. Nickel is included on Canada’s critical-minerals list and was one of the six minerals initially identified for special priority in the federal strategy alongside lithium, cobalt, graphite, copper and rare earth elements. Natural Resources Canada’s 2026–27 planning documents list approximately C$3.87 billion in total allocated federal funding associated with the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy.
Tax policy is another piece of that effort. Canada’s Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit can cover 30% of the capital cost of qualifying property used in eligible activities, including certain nickel extraction and processing investments, for qualifying property becoming available for use through the end of 2031. Eligibility depends on the specific investment and tax rules, so it should not be treated as an automatic subsidy for Turnagain. Still, the framework demonstrates why Ottawa continues viewing large domestic nickel resources as strategically valuable even while private-sector investment becomes more selective.
Turnagain’s Next Test Is Finding the Right Path Without Mitsubishi
The first immediate milestone is procedural: Mitsubishi’s sale back to Giga is expected to close around October 12. Beyond that, the larger question is how Giga advances a project whose pre-feasibility study contemplated nearly US$1.9 billion in initial capital. Giga has previously said it is pursuing additional strategic-partnership discussions, and its 2026 development materials describe feasibility work, environmental assessment, permitting and an eventual construction decision as future steps, all explicitly subject to financing and continued project evaluation.
Meanwhile, exploration provides a second pathway. The company’s copper and platinum-group-metal work could create new drill targets outside the established nickel resource, while the existing nickel project remains available should market conditions improve. That leaves Turnagain in an unusual position: Mitsubishi is departing after reassessing the very markets that originally helped attract it, yet the underlying project is still moving. The next phase will depend less on the size of the deposit — which is already well established — and more on nickel economics, EV demand, exploration results and Giga’s ability to bring new capital to the table.
