In an April 3 decision, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) voted 4-0 in favor of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) Fair Trade Coalition’s position that the industry has suffered because of unfairly dumped imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia. This affirmative vote on injury is the last remaining procedural hurdle before final antidumping orders can be issued later this month.

“This vote today finalizes the case to address the harm that unfair trade practices have had on the U.S. biodiesel industry,” NBB chief executive officer Donnell Rehagen said. “Foreign producers dumping product into American markets below cost has undermined the jobs and environmental benefits that U.S. biodiesel brings to the table. Establishing a level playing field for true competition in the market will allow the domestic industry the opportunity to put to work substantial underutilized production capacity.” 

Last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce calculated final dumping rates ranging from 60.44% to 86.41% for Argentina's producers and 92.52% to 276.65% for Indonesia's producers.

The NBB Fair Trade Coalition filed this antidumping petition in parallel to a countervailing duty petition to address a flood of subsidized and dumped imports from Argentina and Indonesia that resulted in market share losses and depressed prices for domestic producers. Biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia surged by 464% from 2014 to 2016, taking 18.3 percentage points of market share from U.S. manufacturers.

Related:Commerce department issues final ruling on biodiesel antidumping duties

These surging, artificially low-priced imports prevented producers from earning adequate returns on their substantial investments and stifled the ability of U.S. producers to make further investments to serve a growing market.

A final determination by the Commerce Department in the companion countervailing duty determination was announced in early November, resulting in duty deposit rates of 71.45-72.28% for Argentina and 34.45-64.73% for Indonesia.

The U.S. biodiesel market supports nearly 64,000 jobs nationwide and has more than $11 billion in economic impact. Every 100 million gal. increase in biodiesel production supports some 3,200 additional jobs. Producers nationwide are poised to expand production and hire new workers with steady growth in the industry.

Made from an increasingly diverse mix of resources such as recycled cooking oil, soybean oil and animal fats, biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning diesel replacement that can be used in existing diesel engines without modification. It is the nation’s first domestically produced, commercially available advanced biofuel. NBB is the U.S. trade association representing the biodiesel and renewable diesel industries, including producers, feedstock suppliers and fuel distributors.

Related:Preliminary antidumping duties will be imposed on biodiesel imports