Arizona Tribune - U.S. Customs Suspects Evasion of AD/CVD Duties on Oil Country Tubular Goods From China by Thai Exporter

Guillermo Moreno, President of Tenaris in the U.S. and Chairman of USOMA, said, "USOMA commends U.S. Customs for their commitment to investigating possible evasion of U.S. trade laws through strategies that cheat the U.S. government out of billions of dollars in duty revenue. The domestic OCTG industry is uniquely prepared to support our customers' activities with reliable, high-quality products."

Jacky Massaglia, Senior Vice President of Vallourec North America and the Vice Chairman of USOMA, agreed that "Customs' second finding of evasion of the AD and CVD orders on Chinese OCTG through the false front of operations in Thailand demonstrates the persistent challenges U.S. producers face, even with trade orders in place. Only through strong enforcement can American manufacturing and American workers truly thrive. USOMA remains committed to working closely with U.S. Customs to identify and stop evasion wherever it occurs."

Customs had previously found in an Enforce and Protect Act ("EAPA") investigation that two Thai companies, Petroleum Equipment (Thailand) Co., Ltd. ("PET") and Thai Oil Pipe Co., Ltd. ("TOP"), had engaged in evasion with 10 named U.S. importers to falsely transship OCTG produced in China to the United States as a product of Thai origin. Customs took swift action to address that evasion and to collect the duties that were not paid on those imports.

Customs initiated this investigation after USOMA filed allegations pursuant to EAPA that provided evidence of transshipment through Thailand. Customs also discovered that Boly Pipe used the freight forwarder Yifan Shipping, whom Customs previously found may have transshipped OCTG for TOP and PET in the prior EAPA investigation.

Customs stated that it will implement the following interim measures based on its affirmative interim EAPA determination:

• Suspend liquidation of unliquidated entries entered on or after the date of initiation, February 5, 2025, and reject any entry summaries and require a re-file for those entries that are within the entry summary reject period;

• Extend liquidation of unliquidated entries that entered before the date of initiation, February 5, 2025;

• Require "live" entry for all imports of certain oil country tubular goods claimed to be manufactured by Boly Pipe Co., Ltd., requiring the importers to submit proper documentation and all duties prior to release of the merchandise; and will

• Evaluate the importers' continuous bonds to determine if higher bonding requirements to cover potential AD and CVD duties are necessary.

The applicable AD duty rate is the "PRC-Wide Entity" rate of 99.14 percent, and the CVD rate is the "All Others" rate of an additional 27.08 percent.

Media Relations Contact:
Roberto De Hoyos
Vice President Public Affairs
[email protected]

SOURCE: U.S. OCTG Manufacturers Association

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

H.Thompson--AT