The US Department of Commerce (DOC) announced Tuesday its affirmative preliminary determination in the countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of imports of welded line pipe from the Republic of Turkey and its negative preliminary determination in the CVD investigation of imports of welded line pipe from the Republic of Korea.
In the Korea investigation, the DOC preliminarily determined that mandatory respondents NEXTEEL Co. Ltd. and SeAH Steel Corporation received subsidy rates of 0.47 percent and 0.52 percent, respectively. These rates are considered de minimis under US law, resulting in a negative preliminary determination that applies to the country as a whole.
In the Turkey investigation, the DOC preliminarily determined that mandatory respondents Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Tosyali Dis Ticaret A.S. received subsidy rates of 8.85 percent and 3.76 percent, respectively. All other producers/exporters in Turkey have been assigned a preliminary subsidy rate of 4.36 percent.
As a result of the preliminary affirmative determination for Turkey, Commerce will instruct US
Customs and Border Protection to require cash deposits based on these preliminary rates. However, as a result of the negative preliminary determination for Korea, no cash deposit will be required for imports of welded line pipe from Korea.
The petitioners for these investigations are: American Cast Iron Pipe Company (Birmingham, AL); Energex, a division of JMC Steel Group (Chicago, IL); Maverick Tube Corporation (Houston, TX); Northwest Pipe Company (Vancouver, WA); Stupp Corporation, a division of Stupp Bros., Inc. (Baton Rouge, LA); Tex-Tube Corporation (Houston, TX); TMK IPSCO (Houston, TX); and Welspun Tubular LLC USA (Little Rock, AR).
The DOC has aligned these CVD investigations with the concurrent antidumping duty investigations of welded line pipe from Turkey and Korea, and is scheduled to announce its final determinations on or about July 29, 2015, unless the statutory deadline is extended. The ITC is currently scheduled to make its final injury determinations in September 2015.