The Peruvian government announced Oct. 26 its imposition of antidumping duties on Argentine biodiesel, citing “important domestic industry damage” by way of deteriorating production, domestic sales, market share, use of installed productive capacity, profits and inventories from its national biodiesel producers as a result of the influx of cheap Argentine product.

Argentina biodiesel pricing benefits from differential export taxes, which help keep prices lower than most product in the destination markets to which it is exported.  

The decision was made by the Commission on Dumping, Subsidies and Elimination of Non-Tariff Trade Barriers after an investigation analyzing the market effects of imports from Argentina over five years, from 2009 to 2014. The investigation determined that Argentine biodiesel undersold domestic Peruvian product by margins of 17 to more than 31 percent.  

“Rising export volumes of Argentine biodiesel [to] Peru, together with the wide margin of underselling, [forced] Peruvian producers to market their biodiesel in low volumes and at prices below their costs during most of the review period, despite growth demand that occurred during that period, prompting an important domestic industry damage,” stated Peru’s National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi).

Tariffs on biodiesel entering Peru from LDC Argentina S.A. (Louis Dreyfus), Cargill S.A.C.I., and Bunge Argentina S.A. stand at USD$191.60, $134.70 and $141.40 per ton, respectively, roughly between 45 cents a gallon for Cargill and up to 64 cents a gallon for Louis Dreyfus. The complete list of tariff prices and companies can be found here on Indecopi’s website. 

The tariffs, according to Indecopi, will be in effect for five years.