On June 27, 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency (“CBSA”) issued a notice that it will be conducting a re-investigation in respect of oil country tubular goods originating in or exported from Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam (the "Subject Goods”).  This re-investigation falls under measure in force code OCTG2.  Detailed information, including the definition of the Subject Goods, can be found on the OCTG2 page.

Additionally, the CBSA has announced it will also update the surrogate normal values for certain seamless carbon and oil country tubular goods originating in or exported from China, under measure in force codes SC and OCTG1 respectively!

Background Information – OCTG 2

On July 21, 2014, CBSA originally initiated an investigation in response to a complaint from Canadian producers Tenaris Canada and Evraz Inc. NA Canada.  On March 3, 2015 the CBSA made a final determination that Subject Goods were being dumped.

On April 2, 2015, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal issued a finding that the dumping of the Subject Goods was threatening to cause injury to the Canadian domestic industry.  As a result of this finding, the anti-dumping duties (“ADDs”) determined by the CBSA came into effect, replacing earlier provisional duties for the Subject Goods from the listed countries.

Two exporters that cooperated with CBSA in its investigation were determined not to be dumping and were not subject to ADDs, while seven other companies were assigned specific normal values in respect of their products.  Importers of subject goods from all other exporters are subject to 34.7% ADDs.

Why Does this Re-Investigation Matter

This is the sixth CBSA re-investigation since 2011 and the fourth since 2020 for OCTGs and SC, with the most recent re-investigation having concluded less than two years ago (March 17, 2023 for SC and OCTG1 and September 6, 2022 for OCTG2)!  Previous re-investigation were also concluded in 2011, 2015, and 2020.

While not explicitly stated in the announcement, these frequent investigations seem to indicate CBSA’s concerns regarding price volatility in the OCTG sector.  Selling at normal values established in October 2022 and March 2023 may not be enough to protect the Canadian domestic industry.  It also seems to signal that CBSA is taking seriously recent complaints that surrogate normal values based on US data from August 2022 are insufficient to eliminate dumping, which we discussed in a previous blog post.

What’s Next

Importers and exporters should ask CBSA for a Request for Information (“RFI”) package if they have not yet received one and start working on it ASAP!  Importer responses to the RFI are due by July 18, 2024, and exporter responses are due by August 6, 2024.

If you may be impacted by this re-investigation, legal advice from counsel with experience in the area is highly recommended, in order to put your best foot forward and try to minimize the impacts of anti-dumping and countervailing duties!

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