NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE.pdf

Notice of Intent to Award a Sole Source Purchase Order

CRU International Ltd. — CRU Asset Platform Subscription

Contracting Office: U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Acquisition Management, Strategic Sourcing Program Office, Washington, D.C.

Requiring Activity: International Trade Administration (ITA), Office of Enforcement and Compliance

NAICS Code: 519290 — Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services

Response Due: Ten (10) calendar days from the date of publication of this notice

1. Description

This is a notice of intent to award a sole source purchase order. It is not a solicitation for quotations, a request for competitive quotations, or a request for competitive proposals. No solicitation package is available for review.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), Office of Acquisition Management (OAM), Strategic Sourcing Program Office (SSPO), intends to negotiate on a sole source basis and issue a purchase order to CRU International Ltd. (CRU) on behalf of the International Trade Administration (ITA), Office of Enforcement and Compliance (E&C), for an enterprise-wide subscription to the CRU Asset Platform.

This acquisition is conducted under simplified acquisition procedures. The authority permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), under which the Contracting Officer may solicit from a single source upon determining that only one source is reasonably available to satisfy the Government’s requirement. The resulting purchase order will carry an estimated base period of performance of September 1, 2026 through August 30, 2027.

2. Background and Need

E&C administers the U.S. trade remedy laws, applying the antidumping remedy to unfair foreign pricing behavior and the countervailing duty remedy to unfair foreign government subsidies. Executing that mission depends on continuous access to consistent, accurate, plant-level data on global steel, aluminum, and copper production.

The Section 232 duty rates on steel and aluminum products were raised first to 25 percent and subsequently to 50 percent, and Section 232 duties were levied on copper in 2025 and later expanded.

Each action raised the evidentiary burden carried by ITA analysts. Facility-level granularity is now essential to identifying the specific factors that drive steel, aluminum, and copper production capability, to responding to industry inquiries, and to verifying data submitted on the record.

ITA analysts have developed substantial subject matter expertise on plant-level production and input costs, and the CRU subscription has been integral to that work. The data supports the construction of baseline cost profiles for countries and regions worldwide, which in turn allows E&C to evaluate differences in regional and national market conditions and to determine whether foreign measures are directing Chinese steel and aluminum into the United States, directly or indirectly. ITA’s goal of defending U.S. workers, industries, and communities from global overcapacity, particularly overcapacity arising from Chinese industrial policy, cannot be met without accurate and current metals information at this level of detail.

3. Requirement

ITA requires a subscription to an online database covering steel, aluminum, and copper production at specific facilities, companies, and countries, providing plant-level information that includes cost drivers, production numbers, power usage, ownership information, and technical parameters, together with an asset platform permitting the user to develop comparisons between facilities and regions. At minimum, the subscription shall satisfy the following:

a. An enterprise-wide subscription with unlimited access for ITA employees, delivered online, requiring no installation of vendor software on ITA computers, and affording direct user access to the platform rather than routing data requests through customer service representatives.

b. Unique monthly crude steel production data not otherwise available in a timely manner from other data vendors, sufficient to calculate the import penetration of steel mill products in the United States and to analyze the U.S. share of world crude steel production.

c. Plant-level production data including capacity, equipment information, cost information, operator and owner company names, employment figures, and equity shares from across the globe, supported by on-the-ground teams in China.

d. Data readily available for countries, including China and Russia, for which aluminum data is otherwise difficult to obtain.

e. Historic, current, and predictive data on aluminum smelting (primary) and aluminum rolling (secondary) facilities, with detailed breakdowns of site costs, labor costs, material costs, energy costs, energy sources, and ownership structure.

f. Data reviewed and updated quarterly by the vendor.

g. Export capability to the user’s statistical software, primarily Excel and Power BI.

h. An asset platform permits like-for-like comparison of assets, companies, and value chains.

i. Like-to-like comparison of process-level emissions across assets and regions, delivered quickly.

j. User-generated interactive graphs and tables on a digital platform.

k. Comparative insights present a dual perspective on costs and emissions.

l. Access to vendor expert analysts in all regions of the globe, available to engage with users on interpreting the data and the dynamics of local markets, and on cross-country and cross-plant comparisons.

m. A vendor Help Desk provides customer support in locating data resources and using the emissions analysis tool, and technical assistance as required, with erroneous data augmented or corrected by the vendor within two business days of discovery.

The subscription must further permit ITA to internally redistribute data obtained from the vendor’s databases, including public online publication of visualizations and derivative analytical products, and to share aggregated and sufficiently transformed data with outside entities subject to CRU’s approval. Clear documentation of the ability to redistribute and publish must be provided with the dataset. All data shall be available online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from any computer, and available for immediate download or analysis by the user.

4. Basis for the Government’s Determination

The industry understands that the CRU Asset Platform is the only source providing this data together with a tool to manipulate it directly on a single web-based platform. The tool underpins recurring ITA products and analyses that depend on company-level and facility-level information, among them the Aluminum Country of Smelt Dashboard, the Steel Melt and Pour Dashboard, the Steel Executive Summary Report, Steel Country Reports, the Steel and Aluminum Scrap Monitor, aluminum facility monitoring, steel-related taskers, and IMAU Weekly Facts and Figures. A forthcoming project on copper import monitoring and global copper trade will rely heavily on CRU data. The Government has identified no comparable source of information that is unified, comprehensive, direct-access, and user-friendly, or that permits standardized, transparent, and global comparison.

In finalizing the acquisition documentation for this requirement, the Government received comments from four independent associations: the American Iron and Steel Institute, the OECD Steel Committee, the Aluminum Association, and the International Aluminum Institute. Each attested to the quality of the CRU product and to the absence of real competition in this market.

5. Instructions to Responding Firms

This notice is published for informational purposes and to permit interested firms to identify their interest and capability. A firm that determines it can meet every requirement stated in Section 3 shall submit a written response to the point of contact identified below within ten (10) calendar days from the date of publication of this synopsis for that response to be taken into consideration by the Government.

Responses shall address each requirement in Section 3 specifically and shall demonstrate, rather than assert, the ability to perform. Responses must clearly and thoroughly defend any claim or assertion that attempts to refute the Government’s determination and must eliminate the Government’s concerns regarding the availability of the required data and tooling from any other source. Marketing materials, general corporate literature, and expressions of interest unsupported by demonstrated capability will not be considered responsive.

Information received will normally be considered for the purpose of determining whether to conduct competitive procurement. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed action based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. If no qualified or affirmative response is received within ten (10) calendar days of this notice establishing that a qualified source is more advantageous to the Government, a purchase order will be awarded to CRU International Ltd. without further notice.

Responding firms bear all costs associated with the preparation and submission of a response. The Government will not reimburse any cost.

6. Point of Contact

Any questions regarding this notice must be submitted in writing via email to Tianna Snowden (tsnowden@doc.gov). Telephonic questions or requests are strongly discouraged.