How Austria Stopped Being the Clean Chromate Origin
Two of our radars this week put the strontium chromate orders on your screen and both were looking at France. The Austrian order is the one with money in it: Habich GmbH sits at 11.01 percent preliminary for the same twelve months France was cleared, the deposit on those entries was zero, and the final results are capped at Monday.
Two radars at this desk in the last five days put the strontium chromate orders in front of you, and both of them were looking at France.
Friday's carried the finished 2023-2024 review: Societe Nouvelle des Couleurs Zinciques at 0.00 percent, CBP instructed to liquidate those entries without regard to antidumping duties. Tuesday's carried Monday's anniversary list, where A-427-830 and A-433-813 sit among the eleven chemical orders whose review window closes November 30.
Neither of them looked at Austria.
Austria is where the money is. On May 13 Commerce preliminarily found Habich GmbH selling into the United States below normal value during the identical twelve months, at 11.01 percent.
The deposit your importer posted on those entries was 0.00, because three consecutive reviews before it had cleared the company.
And the final results on that preliminary are capped at Monday.
"Which of the two foreign chromate suppliers is actually the cheap one this year?"
Five years of review history say the answer flipped.
The Same Twelve Months, Two Answers
The orders date to November 27, 2019, on a petition from Lumimove Inc. d/b/a WPC Technologies of Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
Austria came in at 25.90 percent, France at 32.16 percent, and those are still the all-others rates on both lines today.
What happened afterwards is the part nobody tracks, because it arrives one Federal Register notice at a time, years apart (chart below).
France walked its rate down: 14.65 percent in the first review, 2.04 in the second, zero in the third. Austria opened at zero and stayed there for three reviews running.
Then the 2023-2024 cycle produced 11.01 percent on Austria and another zero on France, and the two origins changed places on a scope that covers exactly one compound.
The scope is narrow enough that there is nowhere to hide inside it. SrCrO4, CAS 7789-06-2, any form, powder or paste or solution, plus any blend carrying 15 percent or more strontium chromate by total formula weight, plus anything processed in a third country that would otherwise qualify.
Entries land on HTSUS 2841.50.9100 and may also come in under 3212.90.0050.
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