MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US International Trade Commission (USITC) is investigating a statement by American manufacturers that imports of granular polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) from India and Russia are being sold in the United States at below fair prices, said USITC.
Daikin America (Orangeburg, New York) asked the USITC and the US Department of Commerce for the investigation in a petition filed on 27 January. The USITC announced that it had found enough support to begin the final phase investigation on 15 March.
Daikin has PTFE production at Decatur, Alabama. Other US producers are Chemours, at Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Solvay Specialty Polymers, at Orange, Texas. Indian producers include Gujarat Fluorochemicals and Hindustan Fluorocarbons. Russian producers include HaloPolymer.
As it was written earlier, the US International Trade Commission (USITC) voted unanimously on 10 February that imports of difluoromethane (R-32) from China are being sold in the US at less than fair value, allowing the Department of Commerce to issue an antidumping order. The USITC will issue its final report by 23 March. Commerce began the investigation following a petition by Arkema, the sole US producer of R-32, in January 2020. R-32, also called HFC-32, is primarily used as a component of refrigerant blends owing to its relatively low global warming potential.
As MRC reported earlier, in December 2020, Arkema announced the proposed divestment of its PMMA business to Trinseo for an enterprise value of EUR1,137 million. This project is a new step in the group’s transformation, and is fully in line with Arkema’s ambition to become a pure Specialty Materials player by 2024.
We remind that Arkema said in June, 2020, that it had finalized the divestment of its functional polyolefins business to SK Global Chemical. The divestment was announced last year. Arkema says the sale forms part of its strategy to refocus the group’s activities on specialty materials.
We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 17.1% year on year.
MRC