The US Department of Commerce levied preliminary antidumping duties on corrosion-resistant steel sheet from China, India, Italy and South Korea, though it made a negative ruling with respect to imports from Taiwan, the agency said Tuesday.
All Chinese producers and exporters received a preliminary dumping margin of 255.8%.
Commerce issued dumping margins for Indian producers and exporters ranging from 6.64%-6.92%.
Italy's Marcegalia received no dumping margin. Acciaieria Arvedi and all other producers are subject to a 3.11% preliminary dumping margin.
Commerce assigned preliminary dumping margins of 2.99%-3.51% for Korean companies.
Both mandatory respondents in the investigation for Taiwan received zero dumping margins.
Commerce will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits on imports based on these preliminary rates.
Commerce also preliminarily found that critical circumstances exist with respect to some exporters from China, Korea and Taiwan.
Customs will be required to impose provisional duties on imports of corrosion-resistant sheet imports that entered the US up to 90 days prior the publication of Commerce's preliminary determination in the Federal Register.
No duties will be required for Taiwan because of its negative preliminary determination.
Typically, Commerce finds critical circumstances exist when imports of a product subject to a trade investigation surge by at least 15% in the three months after a mill files a trade case, relative to the three months before the petition filing.
Commerce needs to make a final affirmative determination and the International Trade Commission must also make an affirmative ruling of critical circumstances for the retroactive duties to be kept.
The antidumping duties announced Tuesday are in addition to preliminary countervailing duties Commerce found in early November.
Commerce issued preliminary countervailing duty margins of 26.26%-235.66% for Chinese producers and exporters, 2.85%-7.71% for India, zero-38.41% for Italy, zero-1.37% for Korea, and no subsidy rates for Taiwan.
US Steel, Nucor, Steel Dynamics Inc., California Steel Industries, ArcelorMittal USA and AK Steel petitioned for the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on June 3.
Commerce is scheduled to announce its final dumping determinations for China, India, Italy and Korea on or about May 10. This deadline has been fully extended.
For Taiwan, Commerce is scheduled to issue its final ruling March 7, though this determination may be extended.
The US ITC must also make a final determination that the domestic industry has been injured or threatened with injury by illegal imports for the duty orders to be formalized.
Using preliminary Commerce data for October, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported US imports of hot-dip galvanized sheet and strip in the first 10 months of 2015 rose 6.8% to 2.93 million st from 2.75 million st in the year-ago period.
In the first half of 2015, HDG imports surged 21.6% compared with the first half of 2014.
