CRU: European Aluminium Rollers in the Eye of the Storm Caused By Another US Dumping Investigation

On 9 March 2020, the US Aluminium Association’s Common Alloy Aluminium Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group (AA working group) filed antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) petitions against 18 countries. This comes only 13 months after the US Department of Commerce published AD and CVD orders on imports of common alloy sheet from China.

According to the announcement, “the domestic industry’s antidumping petitions allege that common alloy aluminium sheet from Bahrain, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Oman, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey was dumped in the United States at margins ranging from 15.90 percent to 151.00 percent of the value of the imported common alloy aluminium sheet. Domestic producers also filed countervailing duty petitions alleging that producers in Bahrain, Brazil, India, and Turkey benefit from numerous government subsidy programs.”  Just like the China case, excluded from the scope of the latest petition is aluminium can stock.

The initial deadline for preliminary CVD determinations was postponed from 3 June to 7 August 2020, while the preliminary AD determinations are set for 17 August.

An affirmative decision will leave a hole in the US market

US common alloy imports from the 18 countries in scope increased by 35% y/y in 2019 and accounted for 68% of total US common alloy imports, nearly double the 35% market share such countries held just two years ago. In the immediate aftermath of the China investigation being announced, imports from China surged ahead of the preliminary duties being issued. However, that is not expected in this case given the amount of inventory in the market and the weak demand levels caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, total US common alloy imports are down 51% through April and are expected to decline further as countries in the crosshairs of the latest dumping investigation continue to retreat. Year to date common alloy imports from in-scope countries are off 62%.

If the case goes through in full, this will remove 68% of total 2019 US common alloy imports from the market. However, 2019 was not a normal year in terms of import volumes, with a significant amount of such imports piling up in distributor warehouses.