[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 124 (Wednesday, June 27, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 38271-38273]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-15759]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration

[A-588-833]


Stainless Steel Bar From Japan: Final Results of Antidumping Duty 
Changed-Circumstances Review, and Revocation of Order in Part

AGENCY: Import Administration, International Trade Administration, 
Department of Commerce.
SUMMARY: On May 29, 2012, the Department of Commerce (the Department) 
published in the Federal Register a notice of initiation and 
preliminary results of the antidumping duty changed-circumstances 
review with intent to revoke in part the order on stainless steel bar 
(SSBar) from Japan (the Order).\1\ In the Initiation and Preliminary 
Results, we invited interested parties to comment on the preliminary 
determinations to exclude three products under Grades 304 and 440C, as 
described below, from the scope of the Order and to revoke the Order in 
part retroactively to February 1, 2010. The Department received no 
comments from interested parties. Therefore, the Department is revoking 
the Order in part to exclude the three products described below in New 
Scope Language, effective February 1, 2010.
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    \1\ See Stainless Steel Bar From Japan: Initiation and 
Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Changed-Circumstances 
Review, and Intent To Revoke Order in Part, 77 FR 31578 (May 29, 
2012) (Initiation and Preliminary Results).

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DATES: Effective Date: February 1, 2010.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bryan Hansen or Minoo Hatten, AD/CVD 
Operations, Office 1, Import Administration, International Trade 
Administration, Department of Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution 
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-3683 or (202) 
482-1690, respectively.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    On February 21, 1995, the Department published the Order.\2\ On 
February 14, 2012, Suruga USA Corp. (Suruga) requested that the 
Department conduct a changed-circumstances review of the Order.\3\ On 
May 7, 2012, Suruga submitted revised product descriptions, as 
described below, with respect to one product under Grade 304 and two 
products under Grade 440C.\4\ Suruga stated that, although the form of 
the descriptions was revised for ease of understanding, the products 
described in its May 7, 2012 submission are identical to those in its 
February 14, 2012 submission.\5\ On May 11, 2012, we received a 
submission from the petitioners \6\ expressing a lack of interest in 
the products identified in Suruga's May 7, 2012, request and 
certifications that they account for virtually all of the domestic 
production of the particular SSBar.\7\ On May 29, 2012, we published 
the initiation and preliminary results of this changed-circumstances 
review.\8\ As noted above, we gave interested parties an opportunity to 
comment on the Initiation and Preliminary Results.\9\ We received no 
comments from interested parties.
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    \2\ See Notices of Antidumping Duty Orders: Stainless Steel Bar 
from Brazil, India, and Japan, 60 FR 9661 (February 21, 1995).
    \3\ See generally Suruga's Letter to the Department, dated 
February 14, 2012.
    \4\ See Suruga's Letter to the Department, dated May 7, 2012 at 
Attachment A.
    \5\ See id. at 1 and Attachment A.
    \6\ The petitioners are Carpenter Technology Corporation, 
Crucible Industries LLC, Electralloy Corporation a Division of G.O. 
Carlson Inc. Co., North American Stainless, Outokumpu Stainless Bar, 
Inc., Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, Inc., and Valbruna 
Slater Stainless, Inc.
    \7\ See the petitioners' letter to the Department, dated May 11, 
2012, at 1. The petitioners used the term ``virtually all'' in their 
May 11, 2012, letter. See id. at 1-2. For the final results, the 
Department continues to interpret the phrase ``virtually all'' as 
fulfilling the ``substantially all'' threshold provided under 
section 351.222(g)(1)(i) of the Department's regulations.
    \8\ See generally Initiation and Preliminary Results.
    \9\ See id. 77 FR at 31580.
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Scope of the Order

    The scope of the order covers SSBar. The term SSBar with respect to 
the order means articles of stainless steel in straight lengths that 
have been either hot-rolled, forged, turned, cold-drawn, cold-rolled or 
otherwise cold-finished, or ground, having a uniform solid cross 
section along their whole length in the shape of circles, segments of 
circles, ovals, rectangles (including squares), triangles, hexagons, 
octagons or other convex polygons. SSBar includes cold-finished SSBars 
that are turned or ground in straight lengths, whether produced from 
hot-rolled bar or from straightened and cut rod or wire, and 
reinforcing bars that have indentations, ribs, grooves, or other 
deformations produced during the rolling process.
    Except as specified above, the term does not include stainless 
steel semi-finished products, cut-length flat-rolled products (i.e., 
cut-length rolled products which if less than 4.75 mm in thickness have 
a width measuring at least 10 times the thickness, or if 4.75 mm or 
more in thickness having a width which exceeds 150 mm and measures at 
least twice the thickness), wire (i.e., cold-formed products in coils, 
of any uniform solid cross section along their whole length, which do 
not conform to the definition of flat-rolled products), and angles, 
shapes and sections.
    In addition, the term does not include certain valve/stem stainless 
steel round bar of 21-2N modified grade, having a diameter of 5.7 
millimeters (with a tolerance of 0.025 millimeters), in length no 
greater than 15 meters, having a chemical composition consisting of a 
minimum of 0.50 percent and a maximum of 0.60 percent of carbon, a 
minimum of 7.50 percent and a

[[Page 38272]]

maximum of 9.50 percent of manganese, a maximum of 0.25 percent of 
silicon, a maximum of 0.04 percent of phosphorus, a maximum of 0.03 
percent of sulfur, a minimum of 20.0 percent and a maximum of 22.00 
percent of chromium, a minimum of 2.00 percent and a maximum of 3.00 
percent of nickel, a minimum of 0.20 percent and a maximum of 0.40 
percent of nitrogen, a minimum of 0.85 percent of the combined content 
of carbon and nitrogen, and a balance minimum of iron, having a maximum 
core hardness of 385 HB and a maximum surface hardness of 425 HB, with 
a minimum hardness of 270 HB for annealed material.\10\
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    \10\ See Final Results of Antidumping Duty Changed-Circumstances 
Review and Revocation of Order in Part: Stainless Steel Bar from 
Japan, 71 FR 70959, 70960 (December 7, 2006).
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    The SSBar subject to the order is currently classifiable under 
subheadings 7222.11.00, 7222.19.00, 7222.20.00, and 7222.30.00 of the 
Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS).\11\ Although 
the HTSUS subheadings are provided for convenience and customs 
purposes, our written description of the scope of the order is 
dispositive.
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    \11\ The Department previously listed 7222.10.0005, 
7222.10.0050, 7222.20.0005, 7222.20.0045, 7222.20.0075, and 
7222.30.0000 in the scope of the Order. See id. 71 FR at 7059. On 
February 14, 2010, the above-referenced numbers were replaced with 
7222.10.10, 7222.11.00, 7222.19.00, 7222.20.00, and 7222.30.00. As a 
result of recent changes to the HTSUS, effective February 3, 2012, 
the subject merchandise is no longer classifiable under HTSUS 
7222.10.00. See Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, 
available at http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/bychapter/_1200.htm.
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Final Results of Antidumping Duty Changed-Circumstances Review and 
Revocation of the Order in Part

    Pursuant to sections 751(d)(1) and 782(h)(2) of the Tariff Act of 
1930 (the Act), as amended, the Department may revoke an antidumping 
duty order in part after conducting a changed-circumstances review 
under section 751(b) of the Act. Section 751(b)(1) requires a changed-
circumstances review to be conducted upon the receipt of a request 
which shows changed-circumstances sufficient to warrant a review.
    The affirmative statement of no interest by the petitioners 
regarding the products, as described below in the New Scope Language 
section, along with the fact that no other domestic interested party 
commented on the Initiation and Preliminary Results, constitutes 
sufficient support on the part of virtually all domestic producers of 
like merchandise to warrant revocation of the Order in part. Therefore, 
in accordance with sections 751(d)(1) and 782(h) of the Act and 
sections 351.216(d) and 351.222(g)(1)(i) of the Department's 
regulations, the Department is partially revoking the Order with regard 
to the products meeting the specifications described below.

New Scope Language

    As a result of the final results of this changed-circumstances 
review, the Department will add the following language, as the 
penultimate paragraph, to the scope of the Order: ``Furthermore, 
effective for entries entered, or withdrawn for warehouse, for 
consumption on or after February 1, 2010, the term does not include one 
SSBar product under Grade 304 and two types of SSBar products under 
Grade 440C. (1) The Grade 304 product meets the following descriptions: 
round cross-section, cold finished, chrome plated (plating thickness 10 
microns or greater), hardness of plating a minimum 750 HV on the 
Vickers Scale, maximum roundness deviation of 0.020 mm (based on 
circularity tolerance described in JIS B 0021 (1984)), in actual 
(measured) lengths from 2000 mm to 3005 mm, in nominal outside 
diameters ranging from 6 mm to 30 mm (diameter tolerance for any size 
from minus 0.010 mm to minus 0.053 mm). Tolerance can be defined as the 
specified permissible deviation from a specified nominal dimension; for 
example if the nominal outside diameter of the product entering is 6 
mm, then the actual measured sizes should fall within 5.947 mm to 5.990 
mm; (2) The first Grade 440C product meets the following descriptions: 
round cross-section, cold finished, heat treated through induction 
hardening, minimum Rockwell hardness of 56 Hardness of 56 HRC, maximum 
roundness deviation of 0.007 mm (based on circularity tolerance 
described in JIS B 0021 (1984)), in actual (measured) lengths from 500 
mm to 3005 mm, in nominal outside diameters ranging from 3 mm to 38.10 
mm (diameter tolerance for any size from 0.00 mm to minus 0.150 mm). 
Tolerance can be defined as the specified permissible deviation from a 
specified nominal dimension; for example if the nominal outside 
diameter of the product entering is 3 mm, then the actual measured 
sizes should fall within 2.850 mm to 3.000 mm; (3) The second Grade 
440C product meets the following descriptions: round cross-section, 
cold finished, chrome plated (plating thickness 5 microns or greater), 
heat treated through induction hardening, minimum Rockwell Hardness of 
56 HRC, maximum roundness deviation of 0.007 mm (based on circularity 
tolerance described in JIS B 0021 (1984)), in actual (measured) lengths 
from 2000 mm to 3005 mm, in nominal outside diameters ranging from 6 mm 
to 30 mm (diameter tolerance for any size from minus 0.004 mm to minus 
0.020 mm). Tolerance can be defined as the specified permissible 
deviation from a specified nominal dimension; for example if the 
nominal outside diameter of the product entering is 6 mm, then the 
actual measured sizes should fall within 5.980 mm to 5.996 mm.''

Effective Date of Revocation

    As stated in the Initiation and Preliminary Results, it is the 
Department's practice to revoke an order (in whole or in part) so that 
the effective date of revocation covers entries that have not been 
subject to a completed administrative review.\12\ Absent any comments 
from interested parties, the Department continues to find that it is 
appropriate to revoke the Order in part retroactively to February 1, 
2010, since the Department has not completed an administrative review 
of the Order for the period February 1, 2010, through January 31, 2011. 
Therefore, in accordance with section 751(d)(3) of the Act and section 
351.222(g)(4) of the Department's regulations, the Department will 
instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to (1) terminate the 
suspension of liquidation of all unliquidated entries of the three 
types of SSBar from Japan described above, entered, or withdrawn from 
warehouse, for consumption on or after February 1, 2010, and (2) 
liquidate such entries without regard to antidumping duties. The 
Department will further instruct CBP to refund with interest any 
estimated duties collected with respect to unliquidated entries of the 
three types of SSBar from Japan described above, entered or withdrawn 
from warehouse, for consumption on or after February 1, 2010, in 
accordance with section 778 of the Act and section 351.222(g)(4) of the 
Department's regulations.
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    \12\ See 77 FR at 31580 (citing Notice of the Final Results of 
Changed Circumstances Review and Revocation of the Antidumping 
Order: Coumarin from the People's Republic of China, 69 FR 24122 
(May 3, 2004) and the accompanying Issues and Decision Memorandum at 
3; Large Newspaper Printing Presses and Components Thereof, Whether 
Assembled or Unassembled, from Germany: Notice of Final Results of 
Changed Circumstances Review, Revocation of the Antidumping Duty 
Order, and Rescission of Administrative Reviews, 67 FR 19551, 19552 
(April 22, 2002)).

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[[Page 38273]]

Notification Regarding Administrative Protective Order

    This notice serves as a reminder to parties subject to 
administrative protective order (APO) of their responsibility 
concerning the disposition of proprietary information disclosed under 
APO in accordance with section 351.306 of the Department's regulations. 
Timely written notification of the return and/or destruction of APO 
materials or conversion to judicial protective order is hereby 
requested. Failure to comply with the regulations and terms of an APO 
is a sanctionable violation.
    This notice is published in accordance with section 777(i)(1) of 
the Act and sections 351.216(e) and 351.222(g)(3)(vii) of the 
Department's regulations.

    Dated: June 20, 2012.
Ronald K. Lorentzen,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Import Administration.
[FR Doc. 2012-15759 Filed 6-26-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P