Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts From Thailand: Preliminary Results and Partial Rescission of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2023-2024

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-549-833]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts From Thailand: Preliminary Results and Partial Rescission of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2023-2024</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 producers/exporters subject to this administrative review did not make sales of subject merchandise at less than normal value (NV) during the period of review (POR) July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable August 20, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joy Zhang, AD/CVD Operations, Office III, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-1168. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On July 25, 2018, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the AD order on citric acid and certain citrate salts (citric acid) from Thailand. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On July 1, 2024, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a notice of opportunity to request an administrative review of the <E T="03">Order</E> for the POR. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On August 14, 2024, based on timely requests for an administrative review, Commerce initiated an administrative review of the <E T="03">Order.</E> <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On September 17, 2024, Commerce selected COFCO Biochemical (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (COFCO) and Sunshine Biotech International Co., Ltd. (Sunshine) for individual examination as the mandatory respondents in this administrative review. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> On December 9, 2024, Commerce tolled certain deadlines in this administrative proceeding by 90 days. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> On June 10, 2025, Commerce extended the deadline for the preliminary results of this review by 59 days, until August 29, 2025. For a complete description of the events following the initiation of this administrative review, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts from Belgium, Colombia, and Thailand: Antidumping Duty Orders,</E> 83 FR 35214 (July 25, 2018) ( <E T="03">Order</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping or Countervailing Duty Order, Finding, or Suspended Investigation; Opportunity To Request Administrative Review and Join Annual Inquiry Service List,</E> 89 FR 54437 (July 1, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews,</E> 89 FR 66035 (August 14, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Respondent Selection,” dated September 17, 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> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Results of the Administrative Review of the Antidumping Duty Order on Circular Welded Carbon Steel Pipes and Tubes from Thailand; 2023-2024,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> A list of topics included in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum is included in 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> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Order</HD> The products covered by the <E T="03">Order</E> are citric acid from Thailand. For a complete description of the scope of this <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)(B) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). We calculated export price and NV in accordance with sections 772 and 773 of the Act, respectively. For a complete description of the methodology underlying our conclusions, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rate for Non-Examined Company</HD> The Act and Commerce's regulations do not address the establishment of a rate to be applied to companies not selected for individual examination when Commerce limits its examination in an administrative review pursuant to section 777A(c)(2) of the Act. Generally, Commerce looks to section 735(c)(5) of the Act, which provides instructions for calculating the all-others rate in a market economy investigation, for guidance when calculating the rate for companies which were not selected for individual examination in an administrative review. Under section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act, the all-others rate is normally “an amount equal to the weighted average of the estimated weighted average dumping margins established for exporters and producers individually investigated, excluding any zero or <E T="03">de minimis</E> margins, and any margins determined entirely {on the basis of facts available}.” In this review, we preliminarily calculated dumping margins of zero percent for both COFCO and Sunshine. Consistent with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in <E T="03">Albemarle,</E> <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> and Commerce's practice, <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> we preliminarily assigned to the non-selected company a zero percent rate, based on the rates calculated for the two mandatory respondents. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See Albemarle Corp.</E> v. <E T="03">United States,</E> 821 F.3d 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ( <E T="03">Albemarle</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See Certain Cold-Rolled Steel Flat Products from the Republic of Korea: Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2020-2021,</E> 87 FR 60989 (October 7, 2022), unchanged in <E T="03">Certain Cold-Rolled Steel Flat Products from the Republic of Korea: Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2020-2021,</E> 88 FR 20218 (April 5, 2023). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Results of Review</HD> We preliminarily determine that the following estimated weighted-average dumping margins exist for the period July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,nj,tp0,i1" CDEF="s25,9"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <ENT I="01">COFCO Biochemical (Thailand) Co., Ltd</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Sunshine Biotech International Co. Ltd</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Xitrical Group Co. LTD</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure</HD> We intend to disclose the calculations and analysis performed for these preliminary results to interested parties 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 the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> in accordance with 19 CFR 351.224(b). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Comment</HD> Case briefs or other written comments may be submitted to the Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Compliance. Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309(c)(1)(ii), we have modified the deadline for interested parties to submit case briefs to Commerce to no later than 21 days after the date of the publication of this notice. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> 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 or rebuttal briefs in this administrative review must submit: (1) a table of contents listing each issue; and (2) a table of authorities. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309. </FTNT> <FTNT> <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 Final Rule</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2). </FTNT> As provided to 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2), in prior proceedings we have encouraged interested parties to provide an executive summary of their brief that should be limited to five pages total, including footnotes. In this administrative 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 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. <FTNT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━