The Cheapest Kilo That Isn't Chinese
Chemours wants duties of up to 56.57 percent on Indian PFA, the resin a fab's ultrapure chemistry runs inside. The Commission's preliminary record closes tomorrow at 5:15. India landed at $18.77 a kilo last year, and every origin in the heading except China costs more.
The written record in the newest chemicals trade case closes tomorrow afternoon at 5:15.
The Chemours Company FC, LLC filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions on perfluoroalkoxy alkane from India on August 5.
The Commission instituted Inv. Nos. 701-TA-805 and 731-TA-1804 five days later, held its staff conference on August 26, and votes on injury by September 21.
Small case by tonnage. Very large case by where the tonnage ends up.
"If the duty lands, where does a fab buy the resin its wet benches are made of?"
What the Petition Actually Covers
PFA is the melt-processible perfluoropolymer that ultrapure chemical handling is built from: tubing, valve bodies, fittings, linings, the parts of a wet bench that touch the acid. It also goes into wire jacketing, medical devices, lab ware and aerospace, though semiconductors are where the price gets paid.
The scope is written tightly. Covered merchandise is PFA "provided in primary forms (including, but not limited to pellets, granules, powder, flakes, or aqueous dispersions)" with a minimum melting endotherm peak temperature of 265°C and a melt flow rate greater than 1 g/10 min. Resin outside those thresholds is out, and so is anything "compounded with fillers or reinforcing materials," glass fibre and carbon fibre named explicitly.
Alleged dumping margins run 47.93% to 56.57%. The countervailing allegation is pleaded as above de minimis with no rate attached, which is the normal shape when the petitioner is arguing programs rather than arithmetic.
The statistical line is 3904.69.50.00, and that line already carries a 6.5% general rate.
So the live question is how much dearer Indian resin gets on top of the duty it already pays.
Chemours is the sole US manufacturer of Teflon PFA. It expanded the Washington Works line at Parkersburg, West Virginia and cut the ribbon in October 2024, on a demand case its CEO put plainly on the August 2024 call: Teflon PFA is "an absolute requirement to avoid contamination in the chip manufacturing process," and the product "continues to sell out."
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