Dioctyl Terephthalate From Poland: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, Postponement of Final Determination, and Extension of Provisional Measures

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-455-808]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Dioctyl Terephthalate From Poland: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, Postponement of Final Determination, and Extension of Provisional Measures</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) preliminarily determines that dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP) from Poland is being, or is likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV). The period of investigation (POI) is January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023. Interested parties are invited to comment on this preliminary determination. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable November 5, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Megan Goins, AD/CVD Operations, Office V, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-0884. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> This preliminary determination is made in accordance with section 733(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). Commerce published the notice of initiation of this investigation in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 22, 2024. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On July 22, 2024, Commerce tolled certain deadlines in this administrative proceeding by seven days. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On July 24, 2024, Commerce postponed the preliminary determination of this investigation until October 29, 2024. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Dioctyl Terephthalate from Malaysia, Poland, Taiwan, and the Republic of Türkiye: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations,</E> 89 FR 29285 (April 22, 2024) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of Deadlines for Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,” dated July 22, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Dioctyl Terephthalate from Malaysia, Poland, Taiwan, and the Republic of Türkiye: Postponement of Preliminary Determinations in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations,</E> 89 FR 59891 (July 24, 2024). </FTNT> For a complete description of the events that followed the initiation of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> A list of topics included in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum is included as Appendix II to this notice. The Preliminary Decision Memorandum is a public document and is on file electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS). ACCESS is available to registered users at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov.</E> In addition, a complete version of the Preliminary Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/public/FRNoticesListLayout.aspx.</E> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Determination in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Dioctyl Terephthalate from Poland” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigation</HD> The product covered by this investigation is DOTP from Poland. For a complete description of the scope of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> Appendix I. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope Comments</HD> In accordance with the <E T="03">Preamble</E> to Commerce's regulations, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> the <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> set aside a period of time for parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope). <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> No interested party commented on the scope of the investigation as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice.</E> Therefore, Commerce is not preliminarily modifying the scope language as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice. See</E> the complete description of the scope in Appendix I to this notice. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties, Final Rule,</E> 62 FR 27296, 27323 (May 19, 1997) ( <E T="03">Preamble</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation Notice,</E> 89 FR at 29286. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce is conducting this investigation in accordance with section 731 of the Act. Pursuant to section 776(a) of the Act, Commerce preliminarily relied upon facts otherwise available to assign an estimated weighted-average dumping margin to Grupa Azoty Zaklady Azotowy (Azoty), the sole mandatory respondent in this investigation because Azoty withdrew its participation in this investigation. Further, Commerce preliminarily determines that Azoty failed to cooperate by not acting to the best of its ability to comply with a request for information and Commerce is using an adverse inference in selecting from among the facts otherwise available ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> applying adverse facts available (AFA) to this respondent, in accordance with section 776(b) of the Act). For a full description of the methodology underlying our preliminary determination, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">All-Others Rate</HD> Section 733(d)(1)(ii) of the Act provides that, in a preliminary determination, Commerce shall determine an estimated all-others rate for all exporters and producers not individually investigated in accordance with section 735(c)(5) of the Act. Section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act states that generally the estimated rate for all others shall be an amount equal to the weighted average of the estimated weighted-average dumping margins established for exporters and producers individually investigated, excluding any zero and <E T="03">de minimis</E> margins, and any margins determined entirely under section 776 of the Act. The estimated weighted-average dumping margin in this preliminary determination was determined entirely under section 776 of the Act. In cases where no weighted-average dumping margins other than zero, <E T="03">de minimis,</E> or those determined entirely under section 776 of the Act have been established for individually examined entities, in accordance with section 735(c)(5)(B) of the Act, Commerce typically calculates a simple average of the margins alleged in the petition and applies the results to all other entities not individually examined. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g., Thermal Paper from Spain: Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value,</E> 86 FR 54162, 54163 (September 30, 2021). </FTNT> In the Petition, <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Eastman Chemical Company (the petitioner) alleged a single estimated dumping margin for Poland, 57.88 percent. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> Therefore, consistent with our practice, for the all-others rate in this investigation, we preliminarily assign this dumping margin alleged in the Petition, which is 57.88 percent. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioner's Letter, “Dioctyl Terephthalate (DOTP) from Taiwan, Turkey, Malaysia, and Poland,” dated March 26, 2024 (Petition). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation Notice,</E> 89 FR at 29288. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Determination</HD> Commerce preliminarily determines that the following estimated weighted-average dumping margins exist: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s25,9"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Exporter/producer</CHED> <ENT I="01">Grupa Azoty Zaklady Azotowy</ENT> <ENT>* 57.88</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">All Others</ENT> <ENT>57.88</ENT> </ROW> <TNOTE>* Rate is based on AFA.</TNOTE> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Suspension of Liquidation</HD> In accordance with section 733(d)(2) of the Act, Commerce will direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to suspend liquidation of entries of subject merchandise, as described in Appendix I, entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption, on or after the date of publication of this notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Further, pursuant to section 733(d)(1)(B) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.205(d), Commerce will instruct CBP to require a cash deposit equal to the estimated weighted-average dumping margin or the estimated all-others rate, as follows: (1) the cash deposit rate for the respondent listed above will be equal to the company-specific estimated weighted-average dumping margin determined in this preliminary determination; (2) if the exporter is not a respondent identified above, but the producer is, then the cash deposit rate will be equal to the company-specific estimated weighted-average dumping margin established for that producer of the subject merchandise; and (3) the cash deposit rate for all other producers and exporters will be equal to the all-others estimated weighted-average dumping margin. These suspension of liquidation instructions will remain in effect until further notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure</HD> Normally, Commerce discloses to interested parties the calculations performed in connection with a preliminary determination within five days of any public announcement or, if there is no public announcement, within five days of the date of publication of the notice of preliminary determination in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , in accordance with 19 CFR 351.224(b). However, because Commerce preliminarily applied AFA to the only individually examined company in t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━