On September 29, 2024, Bakelite LLC (Petitioner or Bakelite), domestic producer of granular hexamethylenetetramine (hexamine), filed petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking the imposition of antidumping duties (AD) on imports of hexamine from China, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia, and countervailing duties (CVD) on imports of hexamine from China and India.

Under U.S. law, a domestic industry may petition the United States government to initiate an AD investigation into the pricing of an imported product to determine whether it is sold in the United States at less than fair normal value prices. For market economies, normal value is home market or third-country price, or actual cost plus reasonable profit of the foreign producer/exporter. For deemed non-market economy China, normal value is a constructed cost plus deemed reasonable profit based on surrogate values in a market economy deemed of comparable level of economic development to China.

A domestic industry also may petition for the initiation of an investigation of alleged countervailable subsidies provided by a foreign government to producers and exporters of the subject merchandise. DOC will impose AD and/or CVD duties on subject merchandise if it determines that imports of that product are dumped and/or subsidized, and if the ITC also determines that the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with such injury by reason of imports of the subject merchandise.

The immediate activity will occur at the ITC. In the preliminary stage, the threshold to find injury from the accused imports is low such that the ITC generally finds sufficient indicia of injury to a U.S. industry from the accused imports to continue the AD/CVD investigations. If the ITC votes to continue, then the investigation moves to DOC.

If the ITC and DOC make preliminary affirmative determinations, U.S. importers will be required to post cash deposits in the amount of the AD and/or CVD duties for all entries of the subject merchandise entered on or after the date of DOC’s preliminary determinations being published in the Federal Register. Note that if there is a surge of imports from the subject countries following the filing of the petitions, DOC can find critical circumstances for a particular subject country (or producer) and instruct U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) to collect cash deposits retroactively to 90 days before the date of publication of the preliminary determination. 

Following further factual investigation, verification, and briefing, DOC can change the preliminary AD/CVD rates in its final determinations. AD/CVD Orders will only issue if both the DOC and ITC make affirmative final determinations. The ITC final injury investigation is more rigorous than its preliminary injury investigation, where historically 30% or so of petitions are rejected at that stage.

Scope

Petitioner requests the following product scope for the investigation:

“The scope of the Order covers hexamine in granular form or powder, regardless of particle size, or as a slurry, stabilized or unstabilized, whether or not blended, mixed, pulverized, or grounded with other products, containing more than 50 percent hexamine by weight.

Hexamine is the common name for hexamethylene tetramine (Chemical Abstract Service # 100-97-0), and is also referred to as 1,3,5,7-tetraazaadamantanemethenamine; HMT; HMTA; 1,3,5,7-tetraazatricyclo {3.3.1.13,7} decane; 1,3,5,7-tetraaza adamantane; hexamethylenamine. Hexamine has the chemical formula C6H12N4.

Granular hexamine that has been blended with other product(s) is included in this scope when the resulting mix contains 50 percent or more of hexamine by weight, which include but are not limited to, (1) inert additives that do not react with hexamine; (2) co-reactants that react with hexamine when heated; and (3) additives that undergo self-condensation or reaction with other components when utilized in a mixture. Examples of such inert additives include, but are not limited to: precipitated silica, benzoic acid, aluminum silicate, diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP), calcium carbonate, magnesium stearate, citric acid, and metal oxides. Examples of such co-reactants include, but are not limited to: phenolic resins, alkylphenol novolacs, boron-modified novolac, phosphorous-modified novolac, rubber modified novolac, CNSL-novolac, tannin, lignin, tung oil, limonene-phenol condensate, resorcinol novolac, aniline-PF condensate, dicy-UF condensate, and and 1,3-dihydroxybenzene. Examples of such additives that undergo self-condensation or reaction with other components when utilized in a mixture include, but are not limited to polyvinyl alcohol, urea, ammonium nitrate, and zinc dinitramide.

Subject merchandise includes merchandise matching the above description that has been processed in a third country, including by commingling, diluting, adding or removing additives, or performing any other processing that would not otherwise remove the merchandise from the scope of the investigations if performed in the subject country.

Hexamine that has been blended with other products is included within this scope when such blends include constituent parts that have been intermingled, but that have not been chemically reacted with each other to produce a different product.

Excluded from this scope is pharmaceutical hexamine in tablet or capsule form. 

Merchandise covered by the scope of this petition can be classified in the Harmonzied Tariff Schedule (“HTS”) of the United States under the subheadings 2933.69.5000. This tariff classification is provided for convenience and customs purposes; however, the written description of the scope is dispositive.”

Foreign Producers and Exporters of Subject Merchandise

A list of foreign producers and exporters of hexamine, as identified in the petition, is provided in Attachment 1.

U.S. Importers of Subject Merchandise

A list of U.S. importers of hexamine, as identified in the petition, is provided in Attachment 2.

Alleged Margins of Dumping/Subsidization

Petitioners allege the following dumping import duty margins:

China: 723.50%

Germany: 99.96% – 106.33%

India: 33.66% – 43.27%

Saudi Arabia: 482.29%

These are only estimates based on data most favorable to Petitioner. DOC generally assigns duties at the highest alleged dumping rate to foreign producers and exporters who fail to cooperate during the investigation as to answering DOC questionnaires to obtain an AD/CVD margin based on their actual situation.

Petitioner does not provide specific subsidy rates in the petition.

Potential Trade Impact

According to official U.S. import statistics, imports of the subject merchandise totaled $1.94 million and 5.59 million pounds in 2023, representing approximately two-thirds of all imports of hexamine into the United States.

Estimated Schedule of Investigations