Forged Steel Fluid End Blocks From Germany: Preliminary Results and Rescission, In Part of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review; 2023

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[C-428-848]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Forged Steel Fluid End Blocks From Germany: Preliminary Results and Rescission, In Part of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review; 2023</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 countervailable subsidies were provided to BGH Edelstahl Siegen GmbH (BGH), a producer and exporter of forged steel fluid end blocks (fluid end blocks) from Germany. The period of review (POR) is January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023. In addition, Commerce is rescinding this review, in part, with respect to one company. Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable December 19, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel Accorsi or Shane Subler, AD/CVD Operations, Office VIII, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-3149 or (202) 482-6241, respectively. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On March 5, 2024, based on timely requests for review, Commerce initiated this administrative review of the countervailing duty order on fluid end blocks from Germany. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On April 10, 2024, Commerce selected BGH and Schmiedewerke Gr ditz GmbH (SWG) as the mandatory respondents in this review. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On July 22, 2024, Commerce tolled certain deadlines in this administrative proceeding by seven days. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On September 25, 2024, Commerce extended the deadline for the preliminary results of this review until December 10, 2024. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Additionally, on December 9, 2024, Commerce tolled the deadline to issue the preliminary results in this administrative review by 90 days. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> The deadline for the preliminary results is now March 10, 2025. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews,</E> 89 FR 15827 (March 5, 2024) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ); <E T="03">see also Forged Steel Fluid End Blocks from the People's Republic of China, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, and Italy: Countervailing Duty Orders, and Amended Final Affirmative Countervailing Duty Determination for the People's Republic of China,</E> 86 FR 7535 (January 29, 2021) ( <E T="03">Order</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letter, ” Countervailing Duty Questionnaire,” dated April 10, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of Deadlines for Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,” dated July 22, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Extension of Deadline for Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review,” dated September 25, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of Deadlines for Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,” dated December 9, 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>6</SU> <FTREF/> A list of topics included in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum is provided as the 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>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Results and Partial Recission of the Countervailing Duty Administrative Review; 2023: Forged Steel Fluid End Blocks from Germany,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Order</HD> The products covered by the <E T="03">Order</E> are fluid end blocks from Germany. For a complete description of the scope of the <E T="03">Order, see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rescission of Administrative Review, In Part</HD> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.213(d)(3), Commerce will rescind an administrative review when there are no reviewable suspended entries of subject merchandise. Based on our analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) information, SWG had no entries of subject merchandise during the POR. On August 14, 2024, we notified parties that we intend to rescind this administrative review with respect to the one company which has no reviewable suspended entries. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> No parties commented on the notification of intent to rescind the review, in part. We are, therefore, rescinding the administrative review of SWG. For further information, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum at the “Partial Rescission of Administrative Review” section. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Notice of Intent to Rescind Review, in Part,” dated August 14, 2024. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce is conducting this administrative review in accordance with 751(a)(1)(A) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). For each of the subsidy programs found countervailable, Commerce preliminarily determines that there is a subsidy, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a financial contribution by an “authority” that gives rise to a benefit to the recipient, and that the subsidy is specific. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> For a full description of the methodology underlying our conclusions, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <FTNT> <SU>8</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">Preliminary Results of Review</HD> As a result of this review, we preliminarily determine the following net countervailable subsidy rate for the POR, January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s50,10C"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Company</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Subsidy rate (percent <E T="03">ad valorem</E> <ENT>3.51</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure</HD> Commerce intends to disclose its calculations and analysis performed to interested parties for these preliminary results 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). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Comment</HD> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309(c)(1)(ii), interested parties may submit case briefs to Commerce 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>10</SU> <FTREF/> Interested parties who submit case briefs or rebuttal briefs in this proceeding must submit: (1) a table of contents listing each issue; and (2) a table of authorities. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> All briefs must be filed electronically using ACCESS. An electronically filed document must be received successfully in its entirety in ACCESS by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the established deadline. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  As discussed in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum, Commerce has found the following companies to be cross-owned with BGH Edelstahl Siegen GmbH: Boschgotthardshütte O. Breyer GmbH, BGH Edelstahlwerke GmbH, RPSRohstoff-, Press- und Schneidbetrieb Siegen GmbH, and SRG Schrott und Recycling GmbH. <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309(d); <E T="03">see also Administrative Protective Order, Service, and Other Procedures in Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,</E> 88 FR 67069, 67077 (September 29, 2023) ( <E T="03">APO and Service Procedures</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 351.309(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>12</SU> <FTREF/> Further, we request that interested parties limit their executive summary of each issue to no more than 450 words, not including citations. We intend to use the 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 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>13</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>12</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. </FT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━