US postpones preliminary determination in OCTG countervailing investigation

The Commerce Department has postponed the preliminary determination in its countervailing duty investigation of oil country tubular goods from South Korea and Russia, according to a Federal Register notice Nov. 24.

The delay follows a Nov. 15 request from the petitioners in the case to postpone issuing a determination as Commerce has not received any questionnaire responses from importers, according to the filing.

As a result, the deadline for Commerce to issue its preliminary findings has been moved from Dec. 30 to March 7, 2022.

The petitioners for the investigation are Borusan Mannesmann Pipe US, PTC Liberty Tubulars, US Steel Tubular Products, Welded Tube USA, and the United Steelworkers union.

The investigation, launched in October, spans the 2020 calendar year.

The petitioners allege that the imports benefitted from countervailable subsidies that threaten to cause material injury through an increasing volume of subject imports, reduced market share, underselling and price suppression, lost sales, declines in production, shipments, employment and capacity utilization, and an adverse impact on the domestic industry's financial performance.

The International Trade Commission preliminarily determined Nov. 19 there is a reasonable indication that the domestic steel industry is materially injured by these imports.