Stainless Steel Flanges From India: Preliminary Results and Partial Rescission of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review; 2022

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[C-533-878]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Stainless Steel Flanges From India: Preliminary Results and Partial Rescission of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review; 2022</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 finds that countervailable subsidies are being provided to a producer and exporter of stainless steel flanges from India during the period of review (POR), January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022. Additionally, Commerce is rescinding this review with respect to five companies. Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable November 13, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Sun Cho, 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) 482-6458. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On October 5, 2018, Commerce published the countervailing duty order on stainless steel flanges from India. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On December 6, 2023, Commerce published a notice of initiation of an administrative review of the <E T="03">Order.</E> <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On May 30, 2024, Commerce extended the time period for issuing these preliminary results by 120 days, in accordance with section 751(a)(3)(A) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On July 22, 2024, Commerce tolled certain deadlines in this administrative review by seven days. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The deadline for these preliminary results is now November 6, 2024. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Stainless Steel Flanges from India: Countervailing Duty Order,</E> 83 FR 50336 (October 5, 2018) ( <E T="03">Order</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews,</E> 88 FR 84784 (December 6, 2023). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Extension of Deadline for Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review,” dated May 30, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of Deadlines for Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,” dated July 22, 2024. </FTNT> For a complete description of the events that followed the initiation of this review, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> A list of topics discussed in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum is included as an appendix 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>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Results of the Countervailing Duty Administrative Review: Stainless Steel Flanges from India; 2022,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Order</HD> The merchandise covered by the <E T="03">Order</E> is stainless steel flanges from India. For a complete description of the scope of the <E T="03">Order, see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce is conducting this review in accordance with section 751(a)(1)(A) of the Act. For each of the subsidy programs found countervailable, we preliminarily find that there is a subsidy, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a financial contribution that gives rise to a benefit to the recipient, and the subsidy is specific. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> For a full description of the methodology underlying our conclusions, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> sections 771(5)(B) and (D) of the Act regarding financial contribution; section 771(5)(E) of the Act regarding benefit; and section 771(5A) of the Act regarding specificity. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Partial Rescission of Administrative Review</HD> Commerce's practice is to rescind an administrative review of a countervailing duty order, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.213(d)(1), when the interested party that requested a review withdraws the request within 90 days of publication of notice of initiation of the requested review. Commerce received timely-filed withdrawal requests with respect to five companies, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.213(d)(1): (1) BFN Forgings Private Limited; (2) Chandan Steel Limited; (3) Fivebros Forgings Private Limited; (4) Hilton Metal Forging Limited; and (5) Kisaan Die Tech Pvt Ltd. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Because the withdrawal requests were timely-filed, and no other party requested a review of these companies, in accordance with 19 CFR 351.213(d)(1), Commerce is rescinding this review of the <E T="03">Order</E> with respect to these five companies. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Preliminary Decision Memorandum at the section titled “Partial Rescission of Administrative Review.” </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Results of Review</HD> For the period January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022, we preliminarily find that the following net countervailable subsidy rate exists: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s50,12C"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Producer/exporter</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Subsidy rate (percent <E T="03">ad valorem</E> <ENT>1.75</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure</HD> We will disclose to parties to this proceeding the calculations performed for these preliminary results within five days of the date of publication of these preliminary results in accordance with 19 CFR 351.224(b). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Comment</HD> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309(c), interested parties may submit case briefs no later than 30 days after the date of publication of this notice. Rebuttal briefs, limited to issues raised in the case briefs, may be filed not later than five days after the date for filing case briefs. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Parties who submit case briefs or rebuttal briefs in this proceeding are encouraged to submit with each argument: (1) a statement of the issue; (2) a brief summary of the argument; and (3) a table of authorities. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309(c)(1)(ii) and 351.309(d)(1). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2). </FTNT> As provided under 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2), in prior proceedings we have encouraged interested parties to provide an executive summary of their briefs that should be limited to five pages total, including footnotes. In this review, we instead request that interested parties provide at the beginning of their briefs a public, executive summary for each issue raised in their briefs. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Further, we request that interested parties limit their public executive summary of each issue to no more than 450 words, not including citations. We intend to use the public executive summaries as the basis of the comment summaries included in the issues and decision memorandum that will accompany the final results in this administrative review. We request that interested parties include footnotes for relevant citations in the public executive summary of each issue. Note that Commerce has amended certain of its requirements pertaining to the service of documents in 19 CFR 351.303(f). <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  We use the term “issue” here to describe an argument that Commerce would normally address in a comment of the Issues and Decision Memorandum. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See Administrative Protective Order, Service, and Other Procedures in Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings; Final Rule,</E> 88 FR 67069 (September 29, 2023). </FTNT> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.310(c), interested parties who wish to request a hearing must do so within 30 days of publication of these preliminary results by submitting a written request to the Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Compliance using Enforcement and Compliance's ACCESS system. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> Requests should contain the party's name, address, and telephone number, the number of participants, whether any participant is a foreign national, and a list of the issues to be discussed. Issues raised in the hearing will be limited to those raised in the respective case and rebuttal briefs. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> If a request for a hearing is made, Commerce intends to hold the hearing at a time and date to be determined. Parties should confirm the date and time of the hearing two days before the scheduled date. Parties are reminded that all briefs and hearing requests must be filed electronically using ACCESS and received successfully in their entirety by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the due date. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.310(c). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.310. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Assessment Rates</HD> Consistent with section 751(a)(2)(C) of the Act, upon issuance of the final results, Commerce shall determine, and U.S. Cus ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━