Calcium Glycinate Outside of AD/CVD Orders on Glycine, Commerce Finds

Calcium glycinate is not subject to antidumping duties on glycine from India, Japan and Thailand or countervailing duties on glycine from India and China, according to an Oct. 11 ruling by the Commerce Department.

The ruling responded to an Aug.14 scope ruling application by domestic manufacturer GEO Specialty Chemicals, which asked Commerce to find calcium glycinate within the scope of the orders. The company argued that because glycine can be retrieved from the deconstruction of calcium glycinate, which is itself a result of the chelation bonding of calcium and glycinate, the compound should be considered as a precursor of glycine and therefore within scope. GEO described the production of glycine from calcium glycinate as first turning calcium glycinate into wet glycine slurry and then drying it into a crystallized form.

Commerce disagreed, saying that the scope included “glycine of all purity levels" but did not include inputs or precursors used in the production of glycine. A plain reading of the scope language directed Commerce to find calcium glycinate to be a "non-scope input used" in the production of glycine slurry, which is a precursor of dried crystalline glycine.

Commerce explained the production chain as first dissolving calcium glycinate into water and treatment with sulfuric acid to form a solution comprised of glycine and calcium sulfate. The next process separates calcium sulfate from glycine and dries wet glycine slurry into dried crystaline glycine. Because calcium glycinate has to be processed into glycine slurry before the slurry is turned into dried crystalline glycine, Commerce said it found calcium glycine to not be a precursor of dried crystalline glycine. An opposite finding, as requested by GEO, would have been "an improper expansion of the scope," Commerce said. It said that it's barred from interpretations of AD and CVD orders that would "change the scope of that order."

Commerce applied 19 CFR 351.225(m)(1)(ii), meaning that the scope ruling is "applicable to all calcium glycinate" on a country-wide basis to all countries covered by the orders.