WaterBriefs: U.S. activated carbon industry files antidumping case against China
In other news below:
-- Indianapolis, Veolia Water receive national recognition for public-private partnership
-- Alamogordo, NM, Cerritos, CA, win U.S. Conference of Mayors' water conservation awards
-- Citect opens regional HQ in Singapore, fields takeover offers
-- USFilter recommends ZABOCS for odor problem in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.
-- Shimadzu Scientific Instruments unveils plans for PittCon
-- Veridium, Mean Green BioFuels turn livestock, poultry waste into biodiesel
-- Kadant to acquire Chinese producer of stock-preparation systems
-- CEMEX recognized for environmental excellence at Houston Navigation plant
-- XP Software's is first stormwater management model tool with ETV certification
-- RAM-NEK celebrates 50 years of protecting concrete joints
U.S. activated carbon industry files antidumping case against China
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Two U.S. producers of activated carbon today filed antidumping duty petitions charging that dumped imports of activated carbon from People's Republic of China (PRC) are causing them material injury. The petition alleges antidumping margins of 153% to 645%.
Today's filing asserts that the unfairly priced imports have injured the domestic activated carbon industry and petitions the U.S. government to assess antidumping duties on imports of the product from the PRC. Antidumping duties are intended to offset the amount by which a product is sold at less than fair value in the United States (i.e., the amount by which the product is sold below production cost or at a price that is below its home market or a comparable third country price).
Dumped imports of activated carbon from China constitute a large and increasing share of the U.S. market. According to the petition, "The growth in the volume of unfair imports from the PRC has been achieved through aggressive pricing and underselling of the domestic industry in the marketplace."
The petition notes that imports of activated carbon from the PRC surged from 61.6 million pounds in 2002 to 84.1 million pounds in 2004, or by 36.5%. The first three quarters of 2005 saw an increase of 5.8%, to 64.3 million pounds, compared to the comparable 2004 period. PRC imports represented between 53 and 59% of all imports between 2002 and 2004, making it by far the largest source of imported activated carbon. The import volume from China was nearly four times the volume of the next largest import source in 2005. The petition concludes that "the PRC producers have demonstrated their ability to rapidly increase exports to the United States of extremely low-priced activated carbon that undersells domestic producers by substantial margins."
Said lead counsel to the petitioners David A. Hartquist, "The continued low-priced, high volume assault on the U.S. market by Chinese activated carbon is destroying the profitability of the domestic industry, despite its best efforts to reduce costs and maintain pricing and profits."
The filing of the petitions starts the process by which the U.S. Department of Commerce will determine whether dumping exists and the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) will determine if the U.S. activated carbon industry has been materially injured or threatened with material injury as a result. The USITC must reach its preliminary determination of material injury or threat of material injury within 45 days; the Commerce Department is required to announce preliminary antidumping duties in 160 days. Once the Commerce Department makes its preliminary determination, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin to require importers to pay a cash deposit or post a bond equal to the estimated dumping margin. The entire investigative process takes approximately one year. Final determinations of injury and dumping will occur in early 2007.
Activated carbon is defined as a black carbon material obtained by "activating" various materials containing high levels of carbon (including but not limited to coal, wood and coconut shells) by heating them and/or treating them with chemicals which create a vast internal pore structure in the carbon material. The pores trap contaminants in liquids or gases, a process called adsorption. Typical uses of activated carbon include removing objectionable tastes and odors from drinking water; reducing organic compounds in waste water; removing color and impurities from foods, pharmaceuticals, wine, liquor, fruit juices and chemicals; removing color from raw sugar in the refining stage; removing mercury and dioxins from flue gas emissions; capturing gasoline vapor and recovering solvents.
The petitioners are Calgon Carbon Corp. (www.calgoncarbon.com), Pittsburgh, PA, and Norit Americas Inc. (www.norit-americas.com), Marshall, TX. David A. Hartquist is cairman of the International Trade and Customs section of the Washington, D.C., law firm, Collier Shannon Scott PLLC, where he practices international trade law.
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Among other recent headlines:
• Indianapolis, Veolia Water receive national recognition for public-private partnership -- INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Significant water quality and operational improvements have landed the city of Indianapolis Department of Waterworks and Veolia Water Indianapolis LLC top honors from the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCoM). Mayor Bart Peterson and Veolia Water Indianapolis president Tim Hewitt were in Washington, D.C., today at USCoM's Winter Meeting to accept the Outstanding Achievement Award in Public-Private Partnerships award. Serving as the nation's largest and most innovative public-private partnership for water services, the city and Veolia Water have worked together to bring significant improvements to Indianapolis' drinking water system, resulting in notable reduction in taste and odor complaints and an increase in customer satisfaction ratings...
Also see:
-- "Hurricane recovery, poverty top agenda for opening session of 74th Winter Meeting of U.S. Conference of Mayors"
-- "Alamogordo, NM, & Cerritos, CA, win U.S. Conference of Mayors' 2005 Water Conservation Awards"
-- "MWH, Kansas City receive U.S. Conference of Mayors Excellence in Public/Private Partnership Award"
-- "Schneider Electric makes higher offer for Citect"
-- "TCEP makes offer for Citect"
• ZABOCS solves odor problem in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. -- WARRENDALE, PA, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Pump station #10 is located in the resort community of Jacksonville Beach on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Situated between picturesque neighborhoods and outdoor sports facilities, odors resulting from the station's wetwell and adjacent manhole were resulting in numerous complaints. The city along with the engineering firm Waitz & Moye determined they required a low maintenance odor control system capable of treating both the manhole and wetwell while not disturbing the surrounding community. USFilter engineers recommended the RJ Environmental ZABOCS 5000 biological odor control system as the most appropriate technology to solve the problem...
• Shimadzu Scientific Instruments unveils plans for PittCon 2006 -- COLUMBIA, MD, Jan. 26, 2006 -- PittCon® 2006 announcement includes product launches, technical presentations and workshop schedule for premier analytical instrumentation event March 12-16 in Orlando. New products to include gas chromatography/mass spectrometer, thermal desorption system, evaporative light scattering detector, autosampler...
• Veridium, Mean Green BioFuels turn livestock, poultry waste into biodiesel -- NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Veridium Corp. and Mean Green BioFuels Corp. announced their plans for a joint venture on the conversion of fats from livestock and poultry facility wastes into biodiesel fuel. About 1.6 billion turkeys and 8 billion chickens are slaughtered and processed each year in the United States. The USDA requires facilities that process these meats to use large volumes of clean water to continuously rinse the meats as they are cut and packaged. The derivative large volumes of water contain extremely high levels of protein and fat. These nutrients are removed from the wastewater using conventional but highly efficient wastewater processing methods. This results in a cleaned wastewater and a concentrated sludge, which is called dissolved air flotation (DAF) sludge. The poultry industry alone generates in excess of 2.5 billion pounds or more than 63,000 tanker loads per year of DAF sludge...
Also see: "Veridium to showcase new recycling technologies at International Poultry Expo"
• Kadant to acquire Chinese producer of stock-preparation systems -- ACTON, MA, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Kadant Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of the Jining Huayi Light Industry Machinery Co. Ltd. for about $20 million in cash, subject to adjustment. Huayi is a supplier of stock-preparation systems in China, with unaudited revenues of about $15 million in 2005. Kadant is a leading supplier to the global pulp and paper industry, with a range of products and services for improving efficiency and quality in pulp and paper production, including paper machine accessories, and systems for stock preparation, fluid handling, and water management...
• CEMEX recognized for environmental excellence at Houston Navigation plant -- HOUSTON, Jan. 26, 2006 -- CEMEX Inc., the nation's largest producer of cement, ready-mix and concrete products, today announced that it has received a National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) 2006 Environmental Excellence Award for Category C facilities (more than 100,000 cubic yards annually). The CEMEX Navigation Plant in Houston received Honorable Mention. This is the fourth award won by CEMEX's Houston Ready Mix facilities in the past two years...
• XP Software's is first stormwater management model tool with ETV certification -- PORTLAND, OR, Jan. 26, 2006 -- NSF International's Water Quality Protection Center, in cooperation with EPA, has evaluated the performance of XP Software Inc.'s XP-SWMM on behalf of the EPA's Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program. Created by the EPA, the ETV program furthers the development of environmental technologies through intensive performance testing and verification. The ETV certification offers peer-reviewed information on performance and options of available cost-effective technologies. XP-SWMM is the first stormwater or wastewater program to receive certification under this program. Testing of the software was conducted from May through July 2002 in real world conditions by Crawford Engineering Associates (CEA). Certification or simulation of storm and wastewater management was announced in October 2005...
• RAM-NEK celebrates 50 years of protecting concrete joints
HUNTINGTON PARK, CA, Jan. 26, 2006 -- Celebrating 50 years as a concrete joint sealant brand, RAM-NEK was originally created by Ken Snyder of Houston, TX, the founder of K.T. Snyder Co. Inc., also of Houston. Snyder founded the company in 1955. The RAM-NEK brand is currently owned by Huntington Park, CA's Henry Company. RAM-NEK®, BUTYL-NEK®, and RUB'R-NEK LTM®, are the best known brands of preformed plastic sealants for creating watertight concrete joints on storm sewer pipe, box culverts, manholes, septic tanks, utility and burial vaults, and wet wells...
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In earlier newsbriefs, see: "WaterBriefs: Flood gates, temporary pumps planned for New Orleans outfall canals" -- Also in this report (Jan. 25, 2006): CST announces contract for two water tanks; CarteGraph adds 11 new clients, including two international clients; Spartan Environmental appoints Maher Corp. as New England representative; Stormwater 360 endorsed by DNREC; Mich. Land Use Institute reports on brownfield redevelopment; TWDB winter newsletter focuses on brackish groundwater desalination; WorldWater & Power expands senior management team; PENNVEST approves $31 million for water projects; DuPont commits to aggressive PFOA emissions reduction program announced by EPA; CH2M Hill to build 514-MW power plant for Sierra Pacific Power; Hexion Specialty Chemicals to acquire wax compounds business from Rohm & Haas; Enviro Voraxial Technology enters food processing equipment market; Dairy pollution solutions emerge for San Joaquin Valley; AmerenUE begins adding alum to remove suspended clay from Black River; American Pacific Corp. hires new VP of R&D; Schwarzenegger's Strategic Growth Plan for flood prevention, water quality outlined; AMTROL Inc. appoints new CEO, CFO...
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