Daily Brief Energy/Materials: JSR Corp, Newmont , Xinjiang Tianshan Cement A, Valeura Energy Inc, Ball , KEFI Minerals PLC and more

• 12 days ago, JSR Corp (4185 JP) announced that former research collaboration partner Research Foundation of the State University of New York had sued in an intellectual property ownership dispute.
• I wrote about it here to the extent I could. Since then, more information has become available, or available to me.  Some details on the case. Some on lawyers. 
• Since then JSR has reported earnings with unchanged forecast, and major pure play comp Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (4186 JP) today reported earnings; the stock popped 10+% to an all-time high.

• With two days left in the review period, there could be 28 adds/deletes across the S&P/ASX family of indices in March.
• There is nearly A$1bn to sell in Newmont (NEM AU) due to the potential S&P/ASX 20 Index deletion and a large decrease in the number of shares held in Australia.
• There could be 2-41 days of ADV to buy in the index inclusions while the impact on the deletions will range between 0.7-24 days of ADV.

• CSI 300 represents the 300 largest stocks by market capitalization and liquidity from the entire universe of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. CSI 500 represents the next largest 500 names.
• In this insight, we take a look at the potential ADDs/DELs for the CSI 300 and CSI 500 rebalance in June 2024.
• I currently see 11 changes for the CSI 300 index and 50 changes for the CSI 500 index.

• The first two wells of the Wassana drilling programme have exceeded the company’s expectations with production from the field now over 4,000 bbl/d.
• With a third well expected to boost production further in the next few days, production from the field could be higher than the target of 4.5 mbbl/d.
• The company has decided to extend the current drilling programme at Wassana by adding two wells (from 3 to 5).

• The Ball Corporation’s earnings for the fourth quarter highlighted several of its strategic decisions, performance outcomes, and upcoming developments.
• The company had strong operating results in the fourth quarter and throughout 2023 which generated a free cash flow of $818 million.
• The company’s strategic decisions ranged from the sale of its aerospace business to adjustments in its manufacturing footprint.

In its post-Indaba release of 13 February, KEFI announced that the multi-party, subsidiary-level financing of its Tulu Kapi gold project in Ethiopia is now advancing on the back of Ethiopian federal government commitments finally received in October 2023. As a result, the lead lender quickly processed its approval in December 2023 and now all other stakeholders are triggering their respective flow-on processes. At the same time, the Federal Government of Ethiopia has confirmed that its equity capital investment has been fully documented, committed and already partly invested, while the contractors to the project have reaffirmed their intention and readiness to enter into the already drafted agreements to enable full project launch in H124 (as previously indicated by KEFI).