— By Eric Culp — 

The UK said its Secretary of State for Business and Trade has accepted the final recommendation of the country’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) on import levies for suspension-PVC made in the US, reiterating plans announced late last year. The statement came a day before the European Union said its preliminary tariffs implemented in the summer on US PVC have now become “definitive”. 

The EU levies on US material are at rates of 58% to 77%, the European Commission said. It has also emplaced import tariffs of 74.2% to 100.1% on PVC made in Egypt.

The UK investigation into prices of the US material followed a complaint by local resin maker Inovyn (London; www.inovyn.com). London’s announcement eliminates the “provisional” status both for the anti-dumping duty rate of 38.43% on material from Formosa Plastics Corporation (Livingston, New Jersey; www.fpcusa.com), which the TRA said had co-operated with its enquiries, and for the 56.01% on imported material from all other US producers.

“During its investigation, the TRA found that as a result of price undercutting, the UK’s S-PVC industry faced downward price pressure from dumped US S-PVC, forcing it to reduce prices to levels that were unsustainable for its business operations,” the government said. “The TRA also found that an anti-dumping measure on imports of S-PVC from the USA would allow the UK industry to compete fairly, enable it to operate closer to its full capacity, and potentially increase its productivity.”

London noted that the UK used 440,000-480,000 t of S-PVC in 2022.

At a time when processors in Europe and the UK are now paying state-enacted mark-ups for US material, regional production is on the decline. Polish supplier PKN Orlen (Plock; www.orlen.pl) has unveiled plans to shutter a plant in the Czech Republic, which has a capacity of some 130,000 t/y, according to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe database. This would eliminate almost 2% of European output, estimated by Polyglobe at nearly 7.5 mn t/y.

Weak demand and ample supply are holding European PVC prices at current levels, according to the latest Plasteurope.com report on the material.