News Room - Steel Industry

Brazil's Aco Brazil steel institute is surprised and concerned that US producers are seeking antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of hot-rolled coil, Aco Brazil's president said Friday.

"Each country tries to defend its own market," said Marco Polo de Mello Lopes. "The world is being precautious and the US is in the same path. The placement of this petition will demand work from the companies in their defense. Regarding the CVD in both cold and hot-rolled products, it has absolutely no pertinence."

This petitions allege that HRC from Brazil, along with Australia, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Turkey and the UK, is "being, or is likely to be, sold in the US at less than fair value" and should be remedied by anti-dumping duties. In addition, "petitioners further allege that the government of Brazil [is] providing countervailable subsidies."

For Brazil, the alleged dumping rate is 21.80%. The petitions said producers in Brazil benefit from numerous government subsidies subject to countervailing duties and identify 33 subsidy programs in the country.

"The surprise was because these volumes [alleged in the filing] were very small," he said. "They really represent no threat [to the US market]. The concern was because the US is an important market, especially in this difficult moment that [Brazilian] companies need to pursue the international market."

According to the filing, between June 2014 and May 2015, the seven cited countries accounted for 54.2% of all the 7.37 million st of HRC imports into the US.

Brazil was responsible for 6.3% of this total.

In a statement, Gerdau said it exported small volumes of hot-rolled coils from Brazil to the US and "is waiting the analysis of the petition by the US Department of Commerce."