Why Korea's Highest PTMEG Rate Went to a Plant That Closed in March
Commerce published all four PTMEG preliminary determinations this morning and cash deposits attach to entries made today. The 49.79 percent Korean headline belongs to BASF Company Ltd, which the Commission's record says permanently shut down in March and is being demolished, and because that rate rests on adverse facts available the statute keeps it out of the all-others math. Every other Korean exporter posts 25.32.
In March 2026 a South Korean PTMEG plant stopped for good.
Its owner had announced the closure the previous November, blaming significant overcapacities in the global chemical fibre market, and the Commission's record adds that decommissioning and demolition of the facility were planned for the same year.
This morning Commerce gave that plant a dumping margin.
49.79 percent, the highest rate in the Korean case, assigned to BASF Company Ltd on adverse facts available.
"If the biggest number in a case attaches to a plant that no longer runs, which number do you actually buy against?"
All four preliminary determinations published in this morning's Federal Register, signed November 4 and applicable today. China, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, cases A-570-227, A-580-922, A-583-882 and A-552-855.
Suspension of liquidation and cash deposits attach to entries made on or after the date of publication. That is today.
The Rate That Attaches to Nothing
Start with Korea, because Korea sends the tonnage and Korea is where the arithmetic gets interesting.
Two Korean producers answered the Commission in the preliminary phase: Korea PTG and BASF Company. The second of those permanently shut down its operations in South Korea in March, which the Commission listed as one of the factors mitigating Korean supply responsiveness.
Commerce assigned BASF Company Ltd a rate based entirely on facts otherwise available with adverse inferences. 49.79 percent.
Now read the all-others provision, which is the part that governs your purchase orders. The all-others rate is the weighted average of the individually examined margins, "excluding any zero and de minimis margins, and any margins determined entirely under section 776 of the Act."
Section 776 is the facts-available section. So BASF Company's 49.79 comes straight back out of the average.
What is left is Korea PTG's calculated rate, and that becomes the number every unexamined Korean exporter posts: 25.32 percent.
The headline number in Korea belongs to a plant being decommissioned. The operative number belongs to the one Korean producer still running.
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