Petitioner Says Cheap Chinese Melamine Made Turkey Unusable as Comparison Market
The Commerce Department unreasonably found that a sales-based particular market situation doesn't exist in Turkey, thus erring in picking Turkey as a third country comparison market in the antidumping duty investigation on melamine from Qatar, petitioner Cornerstone Chemical Co. argued in a Feb. 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cornerstone Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00005).
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Cornerstone also argued that Commerce shouldn't have declined to compare the respondents' U.S. sales to constructed value due to the "improper use of Turkey as a third country comparison market," and that the agency "failed to address distortions arising from the use of cost data reflecting natural gas transactions between affiliated parties."
Commerce issued a negative dumping determination in the investigation, deciding ultimately to set de minimis margins for a collapsed entity consisting of Qatar Melamine Co., Qatar Chemical and Petrochemical Marketing and Distribution Co., and Qatar Fertiliser Co.
During the investigation, Cornerstone argued that Commerce erred in picking Turkey as a third country comparison market, since a sales-based particular market situation existed in Turkey due to a flood of low-priced melamine imports from China, which drove prices down. The agency rejected this claim in the investigation, finding that evidence showing that various other countries had AD orders on melamine from China isn't enough to show that "melamine from Qatar is dumped in another country."
Commerce added that average unit volumes are not evidence of subsidized or dumped prices, and that the average unit volumes provided by Cornerstone don't prove the claim that the "dominant presence of low-priced Chinese imports distorted the Turkish market and significantly depressed the price of melamine" in Turkey.
Though the agency said a cost-based particular market situation in Qatar exists "with respect to natural gas," it declined to make a particular market situation adjustment, since no sales were compared to constructed value. In all, Cornerstone argued that Commerce erred in ditching Turkey as a comparison market and not using constructed value and not making an appropriate adjustment to constructed value due to the particular market situation in Turkey.
The petitioner also argued during the investigation that Commerce failed to make an adjustment to address "distortions arising from the use of cost data for the collapsed entity that reflect natural gas transactions between affiliated parties." In particular, Cornerstone claimed that the agency improperly compared the transfer price between the collapsed entity and QatarEnergy, since QatarEnergy "is a government-owned entity." As a result, its natural gas prices are "government-controlled rather than market-determined," the brief said.
Commerce declined to make an adjustment to address this fact, despite finding that it "agrees with the petitioner and determines that a cost-based PMS exists in Qatar with respect to the purchase price of natural gas," the brief said.