Certain Epoxy Resins From Thailand: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, Preliminary Negative Determination of Critical Circumstances, Postponement of Final Determination, and Extension of Provisional Measures

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-549-850]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Certain Epoxy Resins From Thailand: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, Preliminary Negative Determination of Critical Circumstances, 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 certain epoxy resins (epoxy resins) from Thailand are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV). The period of investigation is April 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024. Interested parties are invited to comment on this preliminary determination. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable November 13, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel Jennings or John Frye, 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) 482-1110 or (202) 482-3035, respectively. </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 on April 29, 2024. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On August 12, 2024, Commerce postponed the preliminary determination of this investigation and the revised deadline is now November 6, 2024. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> For a complete description of the events that followed the initiation of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <SU>3</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>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Certain Epoxy Resins from the People's Republic of China, India, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations,</E> 89 FR 33324 (April 29, 2024) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Certain Epoxy Resins from the People's Republic of China, India, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand: Postponement of Preliminary Determinations in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations,</E> 89 FR 65583 (August 12, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Determination in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Certain Epoxy Resins from Thailand,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigation</HD> The products covered by this investigation are epoxy resins from Thailand. 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>4</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>5</SU> <FTREF/> Certain interested parties commented on the scope of the investigation as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice,</E> as well as additional language proposed by Commerce. For a summary of the product coverage comments and rebuttal responses submitted to the record for this preliminary determination, and accompanying discussion and analysis of all comments timely received, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce is preliminarily not to modifying the scope language as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice. See</E> the scope in Appendix I to this notice. Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2), interested parties may submit additional comments on the scope of this investigation in scope case briefs, which may be submitted no later than 30 days after the issuance of the Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</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>5</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation Notice,</E> 89 FR at 33328. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Less-Than-Fair-Value and Countervailing Duty Investigations of Certain Epoxy Resins from the People's Republic of China, India, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand: Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum,” dated concurrently with this preliminary determination (Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce is conducting this investigation in accordance with section 731 of the Act. Commerce has calculated export prices in accordance with section 772(a) of the Act. Constructed export prices have been calculated in accordance with section 772(b) of the Act. Normal value is calculated in accordance with section 773 of the Act. For a full description of the methodology underlying the preliminary determination, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Negative Determination of Critical Circumstances</HD> In accordance with section 733(e) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.206, Commerce preliminarily finds that critical circumstances do not exist for Aditya Birla Chemicals (Thailand) Limited (Aditya Thai), and all other exporters and producers of the subject merchandise. For a full description of the methodology and results of Commerce's critical circumstances analysis, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">All-Others Rate</HD> Sections 733(d)(1)(ii) and 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act provide that in the preliminary determination Commerce shall determine an estimated all-others rate for all exporters and producers not individually examined. This rate 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 rates that are zero, <E T="03">de minimis,</E> or determined entirely under section 776 of the Act. In this investigation, Commerce calculated an individual estimated weighted-average dumping margin for Aditya Thai, the only individually examined exporter/producer in this investigation. Because the only individually calculated dumping margin is not zero, <E T="03">de minimis,</E> or based entirely on facts otherwise available, the estimated weighted-average dumping margin calculated for Aditya Thai is the margin assigned to all other producers and exporters, pursuant to section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Determination</HD> Commerce preliminarily determines that the following estimated weighted-average dumping margins exist: <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,tp0,i1" CDEF="s100,24,xs108"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Exporter/producer</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Estimated weighted-average <ENT I="01">Aditya Birla Chemicals (Thailand) Limited</ENT> <ENT>5.59</ENT> <ENT>Not Applicable.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">All Others</ENT> <ENT>5.59</ENT> <ENT>Not Applicable.</ENT> </ROW> </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 margins 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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure</HD> Commerce intends to disclose its calculations and analysis performed to interested parties in this 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 this notice in accordance with 19 CFR 351.224(b). Consistent with 19 CFR 351.224(e), Commerce will analyze and, if appropriate, correct any timely allegations of significant ministerial errors by amending the preliminary determination. However, consistent with 19 CFR 351.22 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━