The U.K.’s Trade Remedies Authority has provisionally determined that engine oil and hydraulic fluid imported from Lithuania and the United Arab Emirates are being dumped and that the dumping of those products is injuring the U.K.’s lubricant industry.
In a provisional assessment released today, the TRA said the goods from Lithuania were undersold by 69%-74% of the CIF price and those from the UAE by 74%-89%. The company that imports and sells most of those goods is Lubriage, the exclusive U.K. distributor of Mannol products.
“The TRA established that there had been price undercutting of the goods concerned,” the TRA said in a 68-page report. “The result of this assessment is that … U.K. like goods were found to have been undercut by 37% of U.K. sales prices.”
Government data shows the volume of engine oil and hydraulic fluid imported from Lithuania and the UAE increased significantly between April 2020 and March 2024, the TRA said.
The report identifies three Mannol sister companies – UAB SCT Lubricants in Lithuania and Chempioil and SCT Chemicals FZE in the UAE – as being among the producers of the imported products. It recommended application duties of 11.6% on UAB SCT and 24.95% on the other two companies. It recommended duties of 49.59% and 59.4% be applied, respectively to other unidentified producers from Lithuania and the UAE.
Depending on whether the TRA’s recommendations are taken up the the UK government, producers of engine oil and hydraulic fluid in the U.K. could benefit from the TRA’s recommended duty measures by £5 million-£55 million, depending “on the degree to which they are able to raise their prices in response to the measure being imposed.” Meanwhile, the impact on importers, downstream businesses and consumers could be between £14 million and £122 million.
Mark Lord, CEO of UK lubricant producer Aztec Oils, who has spearheaded efforts to bring the issue to the attention of the authorities, was pleased by the announcement.
“I still have plenty of questions, but right now I just feel vindicated!” Lord told Lube Report.
The UK Lubricants Association also welcomed the findings that dumping has caused significant and sustained injury to domestic producers and marketers and has destabilized the UK market.
”This has caused hardship and suffering to UK domestic producers and marketers to at a time when the general domestic and international economic circumstances have been very challenging,” David Wright, director general of the UKLA, told Lube Report.
Lubriage said it would be submitting a comprehensive representation to the TRA to “demonstrate that the proposed measures are unwarranted.”
”Lubriage is deeply concerned by these preliminary findings and their potential implications for the UK market. We firmly object to the conclusions reached and believe they do not accurately reflect the market dynamics or the broader economic consequences,” the company’s solicitor said in an email to Lube Report.