China to impose duties on stainless steel products

Indonesia agrees to extend corridor natural gas block contract for 20 years

July 23, 2019 00:00:00

BEIJING, July 22 (Reuters): China said on Monday it will impose anti-dumping duties on some stainless steel products imported from the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia.

Anti-dumping tariffs of 18.1 per cent to 103.1 per cent will be applied to stainless steel billets and hot-rolled stainless steel plates from companies in the EU and the three Asian nations, effective July 23, China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

The decision follows an anti-dumping probe in July last year after a complaint filed by state-owned Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel.

"The investigation agency has made a final decree that there was dumping of the investigated products and it has caused substantive damage to the industry in China," said the commerce ministry in the statement.

Stainless steel billets and hot-rolled stainless steel plates are mainly used as raw material to make cold-rolled stainless steel products or used in shipbuilding, containers, rail, power and other industries.

China, the world's largest stainless steel producer, churned out 26.71 million tonnes of stainless steel products in 2018, up 2.4 per cent from a year ago, according to China's Stainless Steel Association.

The country imported 1.85 million tonnes of stainless steel products last year, up 53.7 per cent from 2017.

Another Jakarta report adds: Indonesia has agreed to extend the production sharing contract for the Corridor natural gas block with ConocoPhillips, Spain's Repsol SA and Pertamina, Deputy Energy Minister Arcandra Tahar said on Monday.

The existing contract will expire in December 2023 and the ministry has agreed to extend the contract by 20 years to 2043.

ConocoPhillips will operate the block until 2026 before starting to transfer operatorship to state-owned Pertamina, Energy Minister Ignasius Jonan said, adding there was no set timeframe for the transfer.

"After a reasonable length of transitional period, ConocoPhillips will transfer (operatorship) to Pertamina," he said.

Bijan Agarwal, president of ConocoPhillps Grissik Ltd, told reporters the arrangement was a "win-win" as the US company would have been operating the block for 40 years by 2023.

The three years until 2026 will "make sure we have the continuity going through into the new production sharing contract," Agarwal said.

Nicke Widyawati, chief executive of Pertamina, said the transitional period would help Pertamina avoid the risk of a drop in production from the block during the transfer.