Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union threatened to renew tariffs against China on bricks used in steelmaking for another five years to curb import competition for EU manufacturers.

The 27-nation EU said it would examine whether to reimpose the duties as high as 39.9 percent on imports from China of magnesia bricks, which steelmakers such as Tata Steel Ltd. use. The refractory product is used to line the vessels in which steel is melted.

The EU imposed the import taxes in October 2005 to punish Chinese exporters for selling magnesia bricks in Europe below cost, a practice known as dumping. The goal was to help EU producers including Austria’s RHI AG after China’s share of the European market more than doubled to 15 percent.

The inquiry will determine whether the expiry of the duties “would be likely, or unlikely, to lead to a continuation of dumping and injury,” the European Commission, the EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The measures were due to lapse this week and will now stay in place during the probe, which can last as long as 15 months.

The investigation results from a July 9 request by a European industry group on behalf of producers that account for more than 25 percent of EU output of magnesia bricks, said the commission, which didn’t identify any companies. The group says that letting the trade protection against China lapse would probably lead to renewed dumping by Chinese magnesia-brick exporters and injury to the EU producers, the commission said.

RHI, which was among the EU producers that supported the anti-dumping duties in 2005, now wants them to expire because the varying rates against individual Chinese companies have created an imbalance in the European market, said Elke Koch, a spokeswoman.

“We are strongly against any prolongation of the measures,” Koch said by telephone from Vienna today. “The duties didn’t have the intended effect.”
LWB Refractories GmbH of Germany was among other EU manufacturers of magnesia bricks listed in the EU’s 2005 decision to introduce anti-dumping duties.