Which Connect Chemicals Sold You the Inhibitor?

Commerce published the final results of the 2024 countervailing review on Chinese corrosion inhibitors on Monday, and the two mandatory respondents went in opposite directions.

Anhui Trust Chem went from 44.65% to 18.64%. Nantong Botao went from 44.04% to 48.45%.

In March those two numbers were 0.61 points apart. They are now 29.81 apart, and the cash deposits changed on the day of publication.

"Which exporter is actually on the entry summary?"

That question has been worth asking on this order since 2021. It has never been worth 29.81 points.

The Gap Closed, Then It Reversed

C-570-123 is five periods old. Commerce has now published a rate for the stub year that ran from July 13, 2020, for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, and for every one of the first four, Anhui Trust Chem sat above Nantong Botao (chart below).

91.45 and 52.20. Then 17.08 and 10.74. Then 19.09 and 16.63. Then, in the 2023 review Commerce closed in March of this year, 44.65 and 44.04, which is as close as two separately calculated subsidy rates get.

The 2024 period broke it. Botao above Trust Chem for the first time on this order, by a factor of 2.6.

Nothing in the notice explains why, and we are not going to invent a reason. What the notice does say is that Commerce changed its calculations for Trust Chem "based on comments received by an interested party," and the two issues it litigated were whether to adjust Nanjing Trust Chem's rates using the export trading company ratio and whether certain less-than-adequate-remuneration benefits were miscalculated.

The scale of that change is small. Trust Chem's preliminary rate back in May was 19.31% and the final is 18.64%, a move of 0.67 points.

Botao did not move at all. 48.45% preliminary, 48.45% final.

So the inversion was already there in May. Monday is simply the day it started costing money.