US Commerce preliminary countervailing duty determination on silicon metal from Kazakhstan

Mechanism

Following a June 2020 petition from Globe Specialty Metals, Inc. and Mississippi Silicon LLC, Commerce initiated a countervailing-duty investigation into silicon metal from Kazakhstan on 2020-07-27, alongside parallel antidumping investigations targeting Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, and Malaysia. The preliminary determination, originally due 2020-09-23, was postponed to no later than 2020-11-27 and ultimately published 2020-12-03 (announced 2020-11-30). Commerce found Kazakh producers/exporters received countervailable subsidies at a 120.00% economy-wide rate — no individual Kazakh respondent company is named in the determination — and directed CBP to suspend liquidation and collect cash deposits at that rate. The final CVD determination was aligned with the schedule of the final antidumping determination.

Downstream implications

• A 120% preliminary cash-deposit rate is close to prohibitive for Kazakh

silicon metal entering the US market, reinforcing demand for domestic (Globe Specialty Metals/Ferroglobe, Mississippi Silicon) and other third-country supply pending the final determination.

• Part of the same 2020 US silicon-metal trade-remedy wave as the companion

Bosnia/Iceland antidumping preliminary determination (filed separately, same theme) and the pending Malaysia antidumping case — see the global-trade-remedy-wave theme for the recurring pattern.

Open questions

• What was the final countervailing duty rate confirmed in the 2021-04-19

CVD order, and did it change materially from the 120% preliminary rate?

• Did Malaysia's parallel antidumping investigation, initiated the same

day, result in a final duty order, and is that filed in this register?