They literally owned 54 tonnes of nickel that was actually just stone.
It's the awkward use of "the Nickel" for no clear reason
The only way the headline makes any sense is if this is a follow-up to an ongoing saga where it’s like, “hey so you know all that nickel that turned out to be stone? They had bought it all!”
I believe that's exactly what's going on here. I recall first hearing about this story a few weeks ago