Petition Filed for New AD/CV Duties on Magnesium From Israel
A domestic manufacturer is seeking the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on magnesium from Israel, it said in a petition filed Oct. 24 with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations that could eventually result in the assessment of AD/CV duties. The petition was filed by US Magnesium, with the support of the United Steelworkers labor union and several other domestic producers.
The petition is not the first covering magnesium from Israel. A petition seeking AD/CV duties on pure granular magnesium from Israel was filed in 2000, but the resulting investigations were terminated when the ITC found no injury to U.S. industry. An AD duty order on pure granular magnesium from China that resulted from a concurrently filed petition is still in effect.
Proposed Scope
The petition proposes the following scope for the investigations:
The products covered by this investigation are primary and secondary pure and alloy magnesium metal, regardless of chemistry, raw material source, form, shape, or size. Magnesium is a metal or alloy containing by weight primarily the element magnesium. Primary magnesium is produced by decomposing raw materials into magnesium metal. Secondary magnesium is produced by recycling magnesium-based scrap into magnesium metal. The magnesium covered by this investigation also includes blends of primary magnesium, scrap, and secondary magnesium.
The subject merchandise includes the following pure and alloy magnesium metal products made from primary and/or secondary magnesium, including, without limitation, magnesium cast into ingots, slabs, t-bars, rounds, sows, billets, and other shapes, and magnesium ground, chipped, crushed, or machined into raspings, granules, turnings, chips, powder, briquettes, and other shapes: (1) products that contain at least 99.95 percent magnesium, by weight (generally referred to as “ultra-pure” or “high purity” magnesium); (2) products that contain less than 99.95 percent but not less than 99.8 percent magnesium, by weight (generally referred to as “pure” magnesium); and (3) chemical combinations of magnesium and other material(s) in which the magnesium content is 50 percent or greater, but less than 99.8 percent, by weight, whether or not conforming to an “ASTM Specification for Magnesium Alloy.”
The scope of this investigation excludes: (1) magnesium that is in liquid or molten form; and (2) mixtures containing 90 percent or less magnesium in granular or powder form by weight and one or more of certain non-magnesium granular materials to make magnesium-based reagent mixtures, including lime, calcium metal, calcium silicon, calcium carbide, calcium carbonate, carbon, slag coagulants, fluorspar, nepheline syenite, feldspar, alumina (A1203), calcium aluminate, soda ash, hydrocarbons, graphite, coke, silicon, rare earth metals/mischmetal, cryolite, silica/fly ash, magnesium oxide, periclase, ferroalloys, dolomite lime, and colemanite.
The merchandise subject to this investigation is classifiable under items 8104.11.00, 8104.19.00, and 8104.30.00 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (“HTSUS”). Although the HTSUS items are provided for convenience and customs purposes, the written description of the merchandise under investigation is dispositive.
Commerce Accepting Comments on Petition Support
The Commerce Department is accepting comments on domestic industry support for the petitions to determine whether the petitions meet the dual requirements of support by domestic producers or workers accounting for (1) at least 25% of the total production of the domestic-like product and (2) more than 50% of the production of the domestic-like product produced by that portion of the industry expressing support for, or opposition to, the petition. If the petitions meet these requirements, among others, Commerce will initiate antidumping and countervailing duty investigations. Comments are due Nov. 13.
Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the petition.