The US OCTG industry announced Friday the filing of "critical circumstances" allegations in the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of OCTG from India and Turkey and the AD investigations of OCTG from Korea, Ukraine, and Vietnam.
The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has set the "critical circumstances" threshold as an import increase of 15 percent or more during the period after a petition is filed ("the comparison period") over the period before a petition is filed ("the base period").
However, US OCTG industry has alleged that there was market speculation about a case as early as March 2013 and that this speculation had become widespread by May 2013.? That having been said, the industry has argued the comparison period should be from May through October 2013 and the base period should be from November 2012 through April 2013.
Recent data show that during this time period, imports of OCTG from India increased by 50.92 percent; imports from Korea increased by 20.54 percent; imports from Turkey increased by 25.76 percent; imports from Ukraine increased by 20.25 percent; and imports from Vietnam increased by 23.96 percent; each of which exceeds the 15 percent threshold.
Both the DOC and the International Trade Commission (ITC) must make affirmative determinations of "critical circumstances" for CVD or AD duties to be applied retroactively.? Final determinations will not be made until next year.
