Ethanol Blog

Biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia into the United States are sold below fair market value, the U.S. Department of Commerce ruled on Wednesday in its final determination on the National Biodiesel Board's anti-dumping claims.

As a result, the DOC announced it would update the cash deposit requirements on imports from both countries, based on the final amount of dumping found.

In 2016, imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia were valued at an estimated $1.2 billion and $268 million, respectively, according to the DOC.

Biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia surged by 464% from 2014 to 2016, taking 18.3 percentage points of market share from U.S. manufacturers. Imports of biodiesel from Argentina again jumped 144.5% after the NBB petitions were filed. NBB argued surging, low-priced imports prevented U.S. biodiesel producers from earning adequate returns and stunted further investments in the industry.

In July 2017, the NBB asked the commerce department to immediately slap duties on imports of Argentinian biodiesel, claiming in a petition that "critical circumstances" existed to warrant the action.

In the July petition, the NBB requested relief in the form of retroactive duties. The action was designed to deter further imports. That would allow the government to impose duties retroactively on imports reaching U.S. shores up to 90 days prior to the DOC's preliminary determinations on the claims in the petitions.

In written comments to the International Trade Commission, the Argentine government said the NBB petition was based on "extremely limited" information and actually shows the U.S. industry was unharmed.

Argentina made the case U.S. producers never claimed imported biodiesel actually hurt profits. In addition, the Argentine government argued U.S. producers alone were unable to fulfill the RFS volume requirements from 2014 to 2016.

Now, importers of Argentinian and Indonesian biodiesel will continue to pay cash deposits on biodiesel imported from those countries, ranging from 60.44% to 86.41% for biodiesel from Argentina, and 92.52% to 276.65% for biodiesel from Indonesia.

The NBB filed petitions to address what is said was a flood of subsidized and dumped imports from Argentina and Indonesia that resulted in market share losses and depressed prices for domestic producers.

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

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