The European Commission is set to reject a request to place anti-dumping duties on imports of purified terephthalic acid from South Korea, market sources said Friday.
"The duties remain at 0%, they [EC] have rejected the claim," a trader said. "It happened on April 11."
But the EC's official journal indicates the investigation is still under way.
"The case is still ongoing. Disclosure to interested parties has taken place and the Commission is still waiting for their comments," an EC spokesperson said Friday.
Nevertheless, the trader said buying interest in Europe for South Korean PTA had risen as a result ahead of the official decision.
The anti-dumping investigation into PTA imports from South Korea was launched by the EC in August 2016, following a complaint by three European PTA producers: BP Aromatics, Artlant PTA and Indorama Ventures Quimica, which together account for around half of the EU's PTA nameplate production capacity.
Market participants said prices for South Korean PTA had been very competitive in the past and had found a strong customer base among EU PET producers, most of who were contractual buyers.
The intense competition had kept profit margins very weak for EU PTA producers. It also kept Portugal's Artlant's PTA plant in Sines idled since November 2015, having previously restarted for just a month in October that year after remaining shut for around 16 months.
The EC's investigation was set to conclude within 15 months, a period that ends on November 3, 2017. Provisional measures, if any, are scheduled to be imposed within nine months, by May 3, 2017.
