The US Department of Commerce (USDC) has issued preliminary determinations in antidumping duty (AD) investigations on large diameter welded pipe (LDWP) from Canada, China, Greece, India, Korea, and Turkey.

The American Line Pipe Producers Association (ALPPA), a domestic coalition of large diameter line pipe producers that petitioned for the investigations, has commended the USDC's strong response to uncooperative respondents in its investigations of Chinese and Indian LDWP. THE USDC imposed preliminary dumping rates of 132.63% for China and 50.55% for India. In cases such as this, where foreign manufacturers refuse to participate in the agency’s investigations, it is critical that the USDC acts to the full extent permitted under US law to safeguard the integrity of its proceedings.

The ALPPA thanked the USDC for its efforts in investigating the sales into the United States at less than fair value by Canadian, Greek, Korean and Turkish LDWP manufacturers. The agency calculated preliminary dumping margins of 24.38% for Canada, 22.51% for Greece, 14.97% to 22.21% for Korea, and 3.45% to 5.29% for Turkey.

Tim Brightbill, partner at Wiley Rein LLP and trade counsel to ALPPA said the organisation was confident that the USDC would continue to investigate unfairly traded imports by foreign producers in these six countries. “After all necessary information has been provided, we believe the final results of these investigations will reflect the full value of the dumping that has driven harmful volumes of foreign large diameter welded pipe into the United States and taken sales from US producers,” he said.

Due to the pressure caused by unfairly traded imports, the US LDWP industry is currently operating at less than 40% of its capacity.

Cash deposits will start being collected immediately at these preliminary margin levels. Preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) rates were also imposed on LDWP from China, India, Korea and Turkey in June, and cash deposits are currently being collected on such merchandise. The domestic industry awaits Commerce’s final AD/CVD determinations, which may impose higher AD and CVD duties and which are scheduled to be issued in January 2019. AD/CVD duties will be imposed in addition to applicable Section 232 tariffs.

Duties may not be absorbed by the foreign producer or any affiliated importer, but must be passed to the unaffiliated purchaser. Foreign producers or US importers found to be absorbing duties will be penalised by the USDC.