Capacity Ledger
October 16, 20264 min readSubscribers

Why Didn't Your Anode Graphite Go Back to China?

Commerce was collecting 93.5 percent on Chinese active anode material last summer. The Commission ruled against the petition on March 31, no order ever issued, and every deposit was refunded. Through June the customs line still runs China at 288 tonnes a month, and Indonesia now carries 55 percent of the value in a heading it did not appear in two years ago.

In June, 288 tonnes of artificial graphite entered the United States from China.

In May 2025 the monthly number was 5,724.

Nothing is stopping those tonnes. The duty case that pushed them out of the line was decided against the petitioners on March 31, no order was ever issued, and every dollar of deposit went back to the importers who posted it.

"If the duty never took effect, why is nobody buying Chinese anode material?"

Eight Months of Deposits, and Then Nothing

The case is A-570-194 and C-570-195, active anode material from China, instituted on petitions filed by five US producers: Anovion in Sanborn, Syrah Technologies in Vidalia, NOVONIX Anode Materials in Chattanooga, Epsilon Advanced Materials in Leland, and SKI US in Marietta.

The clock a buyer cares about is the deposit clock, and it ran like this:

  1. May 28, 2025. The countervailing preliminary publishes. CBP starts collecting on entries that day: 6.55% for all others, 721.03% for two companies that stopped answering Commerce.
  2. July 22, 2025. The dumping preliminary publishes at 93.50% on the named producer-exporter combinations and 102.72% on the China-wide entity. BTR New Material Group Sales and CATL are both found "de facto controlled by the government of China," denied a separate rate, and dropped into that China-wide number.
  3. September 26, 2025. Countervailing provisional measures expire at four months and collection stops.
  4. January 18, 2026. Dumping provisional measures expire at six months and collection stops.
  5. February 17, 2026. The finals publish unchanged at 93.50% and 102.72%, with countervailing at 66.82% and 66.86%. Commerce ran no verification, because the mandatory respondents never got a separate rate.
  6. March 31, 2026. The Commission files negative, Commissioner Jason E. Kearns dissenting. The proceeding terminates, suspension lifts, deposits come back.

The standard it died on is the unusual one. The Commission determined that the establishment of an industry in the United States is "not materially retarded" by the imports, which is the test that applies while a domestic industry is still being built rather than already operating.

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