Hexamethylenetetramine From the People's Republic of China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-180, A-428-854, A-533-932, A-517-807]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Hexamethylenetetramine From the People's Republic of China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable October 21, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Thomas Cloyd at 202-482-1246 (the People's Republic of China (China)), Ajay Menon at 202-482-0208 (Germany), Dakota Potts at 202-482-0223 (India), and Andrew Hat at 202-482-1058 (Saudi Arabia), AD/CVD Operations, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Petitions</HD> On September 30, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) received antidumping duty (AD) petitions concerning imports of hexamethylenetetramine (hexamine) from China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia filed in proper form on behalf of Bakelite LLC (the petitioner). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The AD Petitions were accompanied by countervailing duty (CVD) petitions concerning imports of hexamine from China and India. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioner's Letter, “Petitions for the Imposition of Antidumping and Countervailing Duties,” dated September 30, 2024 (Petitions). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> Between October 2 and 11, 2024, Commerce requested supplemental information pertaining to certain aspects of the Petitions in supplemental questionnaires. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The petitioner responded to Commerce's supplemental questionnaires between October 7 and 18, 2024. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letters, “Supplemental Questions,” dated October 2, 2024 (First General Issues Questionnaire); <E T="03">see also</E> Country-Specific AD Supplemental Questionnaires: China Supplemental, Germany Supplemental, India Supplemental, and Saudi Arabia Supplemental, dated October 3, 2024; Commerce's Letter, “Second Supplemental Questions,” dated October 11, 2024 (Second General Issues Questionnaire); Country-Specific Second AD Supplemental Questionnaires: China Second Supplemental, India Second Supplemental, and Saudi Arabia Second Supplemental; and Memorandum, “Phone Call,” dated October 15, 2024 (October 15, 2024, Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioner's Letters, “Response to Supplemental Questions,” dated October 7, 2024 (First General Issues Supplement); <E T="03">see also</E> Country-Specific AD Supplemental Responses: China AD Supplement, Germany AD Supplement, India AD Supplement, and Saudi Arabia AD Supplement, dated October 8, 2024; Petitioners' Letters, “Petitioner's Response to Second Supplemental Questions,” dated October 16, 2024 (Second General Issues Supplement); Country-Specific Second AD Supplemental Responses: Second China AD Supplement, Second India AD Supplement, and Second Saudi Arabia AD Supplement, dated October 16, 2024; and Petitioner's Letter, “Erratum to Response to Supplemental Questions,” dated October 18, 2024 (Second General Issues Errata). </FTNT> In accordance with section 732(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), the petitioner alleges that imports of hexamine from China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV) within the meaning of section 731 of the Act, and that imports of such products are materially injuring, or threatening material injury to, the hexamine industry in the United States. Consistent with section 732(b)(1) of the Act, the Petitions were accompanied by information reasonably available to the petitioner supporting its allegations. Commerce finds that the petitioner filed the Petitions on behalf of the domestic industry, because the petitioner is an interested party, as defined in section 771(9)(C) of the Act. Commerce also finds that the petitioner demonstrated sufficient industry support for the initiation of the requested LTFV investigations. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> section on “Determination of Industry Support for the Petitions,” <E T="03">infra.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Periods of Investigation</HD> Because the Petitions were filed on September 30, 2024, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.204(b)(1), the period of investigation (POI) for the Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia LTFV investigations is July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. Because China is a non-market economy (NME) country, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.204(b)(1), the POI for the China LTFV investigation is January 1, 2024, through June 30, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigations</HD> The product covered by these investigations is hexamine from China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. For a full description of the scope of these investigations, <E T="03">see</E> the appendix to this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments on the Scope of the Investigations</HD> On October 2 and 11, 2024, Commerce requested information and clarification from the petitioner regarding the proposed scope to ensure that the scope language in the Petitions is an accurate reflection of the products for which the domestic industry is seeking relief. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> On October 7 and 18, 2024, the petitioner provided clarifications and revised the scope. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> The description of merchandise covered by these investigations, as described in the appendix to this notice, reflects these clarifications. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> First General Issues Questionnaire; <E T="03">see also</E> Second General Issues Questionnaire; and October 15, 2024, Memorandum. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> First General Issues Supplement at 3-5; <E T="03">see also</E> Second General Issues Supplement at 1-3 and Second General Issues Errata. </FTNT> As discussed in the <E T="03">Preamble</E> to Commerce's regulations, we are setting aside a period for interested parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope). <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce will consider all scope comments received from interested parties and, if necessary, will consult with interested parties prior to the issuance of the preliminary determinations. If scope comments include factual information, <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> all such factual information should be limited to public information. To facilitate preparation of its questionnaires, Commerce requests that scope comments be submitted by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on November 12, 2024, which is the next business day after 20 calendar days from the signature date of this notice. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Any rebuttal comments, which may include factual information, and should also be limited to public information, must be filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on November 22, 2024, which is 10 calendar days from the initial comment deadline. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties, Final Rule,</E> 62 FR 27296, 27323 (May 19, 1997) ( <E T="03">Preamble</E> ); <E T="03">see also</E> 19 CFR 351.312. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.102(b)(21) (defining “factual information”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1). The deadline for scope comments falls on November 10, 2024, which is a Sunday. Monday, November 11, 2024 is a federal holiday. In accordance with 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1), Commerce will accept comments filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on November 12, 2024 (“For both electronically filed and manually filed documents, if the applicable due date falls on a non-business day, the Secretary will accept documents that are filed on the next business day.”). </FTNT> Commerce requests that any factual information that parties consider relevant to the scope of these investigations be submitted during that period. However, if a party subsequently finds that additional factual information pertaining to the scope of the investigations may be relevant, the party must contact Commerce and request permission to submit the additional information. All scope comments must be filed simultaneously on the records of the concurrent LTFV and CVD investigations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Filing Requirements</HD> All submissions to Commerce must be filed electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS), unless an exception applies. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> An electronically filed document must be received successfully in its entirety by the time and date it is due. <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings: Electronic Filing Procedures; Administrative Protective Order Procedures,</E> 76 FR 39263 (July 6, 2011); <E T="03">see also Enforcement and Compliance: Change of Electronic Filing System Name,</E> 79 FR 69046 (November 20, 2014) for details of Commerce's electronic filing requirements, effective August 5, 2011. Information on using ACCESS can be found at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/help.aspx</E> and a handbook can be found at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/help/Handbook_on_Electronic_Filing_Procedures.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments on Product Characteristics</HD> Commerce is providing interested parties an opportunity to comment on the appropriate physical characteristics of hexamine to be reported in res ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━