Product Description- The product under consideration is Normal Butanol or N-Butyl Alcohol.

HS Codes – The product is classified under Chapter 29 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and is imported under 29051300.

Countries involved- Taiwan and Saudi Arabia

Applicant – The Andhra Petrochemicals Limited

Period of investigation – 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025.

Injury period – 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 and the period of investigation

Margins and recommended Duties:

Key findings:

1. The product under consideration is Normal Butanol, also known as N-Butyl Alcohol, classifiable under tariff item 2905 13 00.
2. The Andhra Petrochemicals Limited constitutes the domestic industry within the meaning of Rule 2(b) of the Anti-Dumping Rules and the application satisfies the requirements of standing under Rule 5(3).
3. Formosa Plastics Corporation has cooperated in the investigation and has been determined an individual dumping margin. The information filed by the participating Saudi producer/exporter groups was not sufficient for a reliable individual determination, accordingly, the Saudi Arabia determination has been made on the basis of facts available under Rule 6(8).
4. SABUCO is a joint venture of Saudi Kayan, SAAC and Sadara Chemical Company (Sadara), and converts propylene supplied by the joint venture partners into Normal Butanol under a toll manufacturing arrangement. As SABUCO owns neither the raw material nor the finished product, the Authority examined the producer group as a whole rather than SABUCO in isolation.
5. Sadara, which holds 1/3rd of SABUCO did not participate in the investigation. It neither sold nor exported Normal Butanol during the period of investigation and captively consumed its share was considered. However, its cost and raw material information was held necessary, since it owns the raw material and the Normal Butanol produced for its share.
6. Propylene was sourced through related entities, with SABIC supplying Saudi Kayan, which supplied SABUCO. As SABIC did not provide adequate production-cost information, and the evidence from Saudi Kayan, the Authority could not verify that the recorded propylene costs reflected market value or reasonably reflected the cost of production under Annexure I to the Rules and Article 2.2.1.1 of the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement.
7. The Authority clarified that Rule 6(8) was not applied as a penalty, but because the missing information concerned a core element of normal value, i.e., the cost of the principal raw material. Accordingly, no individual dumping margin or injury margin was determined for the SABUCO group, and the residual rate applies to it.
8. The domestic industry has suffered material injury during the period of investigation.
9. Despite the availability of the raw material, the domestic industry did not undertake production of the Normal Butanol, even when production of 2-Ethyl Hexanol was being undertaken.
10. The landed price of the subject imports was below the selling price and cost of sales of the domestic industry, resulting in positive price undercutting and preventing the domestic industry from obtaining remunerative prices.
11. Profitability turned negative from 2022-23 onwards, and cash profit, PBIT and return on capital employed remained adverse through the remaining injury period.
12. The anti-dumping duty would not impact the downstream users.
13. The impact of proposed measures are negligible.