STATEMENT OF WORK_AssetPlatform_062426.pdf

STATEMENT of WORK

Department of Commerce/International Trade Administration

CRU Asset Platform

1. Background

The mission of the Enforcement and Compliance (E&C) unit of the International Trade Administration (ITA), a Bureau within the Department of Commerce (DOC), is to support U.S. commercial competitiveness and facilitate trade and investment by providing U.S. firms and workers the opportunity to compete on level playing fields at home and abroad.

One of the ways that E&C achieves this is by vigorously enforcing the U.S. Trade Remedy Laws, which play an important role in maintaining the level playing field necessary for a properly functioning global trading system. Trade remedy cases are an approved mechanism to remedy the distorting effects of unfair trade adversely affecting businesses and workers. The antidumping (AD) remedy is applied to unfair foreign pricing behavior. The countervailing duty (CVD) remedy is applied to unfair foreign government subsidies.

The current Administration prioritizes the promotion of U.S. manufacturing capabilities and U.S. workers to address longstanding trade deficits and unfair trade practices; therefore, it is imperative that ITA has ready access to consistent and accurate and detailed plant level data concerning global production. The U.S. steel and aluminum industries have received particular attention from the administration’s efforts, highlighted by their raising the 232 duty rates on steel and aluminum products first to 25% and then to 50%. Having detailed, granular, facility level data is essential to provide insights into specific factors affecting steel and aluminum production capabilities. It is a huge asset to responding to industry requests and verifying data. Our analysts have spent months learning about the intricacies of plant level production and input costs. We have a wealth of knowledge at our disposal. With this, we have become industry experts on these topics and have shared our knowledge with other teams and business units. The CRU subscription has been an integral part of our efforts to be subject matter experts on steel and aluminum and as such recognized as being able to efficiently support several policy issues. This information allows analysts to decipher the production process and larger industry, providing greater information for policy makers to facilitate a more level playing field in trade.

ITA requires access to detailed cost information on the steel and aluminum production process for specific assets or facilities. Using cost information, ITA can establish baseline cost profiles for countries and regions around the world allowing for the comparison of these cost profiles to evaluate differences in regional or national market situations. The CRU cost breakdown has been instrumental in developing these profiles and may serve as an additional resource in E&C Operations-related tasks.

Additionally, the team requires great access to knowledge about the copper supply chain, as the 232 duties rates were levied in 2025, and later expanded. The team must become experts in the field of copper to disperse critical knowledge to other teams and business units. The CRU subscription should be expanded to include the proprietary plant-level data on global copper facilities.

ITA’s goal to defend workers, industries and communities from global overcapacity especially to counteract Chinese industrial policies that contributes to global excess capacity, must be supported by accurate and up-to-date metals information. Detailed plant information is critical in understanding how overcapacity may impact U.S. industries, both in terms of their trade, as well as to determine if these measures are directing Chinese steel and aluminum into the United States directly or indirectly.

2. Objective The objective of this procurement is to obtain a subscription to the CRU Asset Platform. To support promoting U.S. steel, aluminum, and copper, it will be necessary for ITA to have detailed plant-level information for energy costs, metallics and ferroalloys costs, purchased semifinished steel, and labor costs, capacity and facilities (including production information about size and types) for analysis, as well as a tool to create like-for-like comparisons across assets and regions and to compare regional assets against U.S. assets. The industry understanding is that the CRU tool is the only provider of such data and a tool to manipulate it directly on one web-based platform. Therefore, this procurement will be other than full and open competition.

3. Requirement ITA requires a subscription to an online database of information on steel, aluminum, and copper production in specific facilities, companies, and countries, and provides detailed plant-level information to include cost drivers, production numbers, power usage, ownership information and technical parameters, allowing ITA to analyze U.S. facilities compared to other global facilities. Also required is an asset platform to allow the user to use the data to develop comparisons between facilities and regions to allow ITA to obtain an accurate representation of trends across these commodities in terms of granular costs of production by asset and by country. The CRU Asset Tool has become invaluable resources in several projects that require detailed company level/facility level information. The projects and portfolios below each explain how these tools are used by IMAU daily. These projects/dashboards include the Aluminum Country of Smelt Dashboard, Steel Melt and Pour Dashboard, Steel Executive Summary Report, Steel Country Reports, Steel and Aluminum Scrap Monitor, aluminum facility monitoring, steel related taskers, and IMAU Weekly Facts and Figures. Additional forthcoming project on copper import monitoring and global copper trade will rely heavily on CRU data. There are not comparable sources of information that are unified, comprehensive, direct-access, user-friendly or allow for standardized, transparent and global comparisons. When finalizing paperwork associated with this contract, we received comments from 4 independent associations (the American Iron and Steel Institute, the OECD Steel Committee, the Aluminum Association, and the International Aluminum Institute.) each of whom attested to the quality of the CRU and the lack of real competition.

3a The subscription shall be enterprise-wide with unlimited access to ITA employees. Access will be online only, with no need to download vendor software onto ITA computers. Access will be direct, meaning that users will be able to access the platform themselves, rather than request data from customer service representatives.

3b The subscription must include a unique monthly crude steel production data that is not available in a timely manner in other data vendors and helps to calculate the import penetration of steel mill products in the U.S. and provide an analysis of the share of world crude steel production (relating to global overcapacity that harms U.S. industry and workers).

3c The subscription must include plant level production data to include capacity, equipment information, cost information, operator and owner company names, employment figures and equity shares from across the globe, including on-the-ground teams in China.

3d The data must be readily available in the context of relevant countries like China and Russia, about whom aluminum data is otherwise harder to access.

3e The subscription must allow ITA to analyze essential and unique data (both historic, current, and predictive) on aluminum smelt (primary) facilities and aluminum rolling (secondary) facilities, providing detailed breakdowns on site costs, labor costs, material costs, energy costs, and energy sources – all factors that directly influence whether or not an aluminum smelter is financially viable as well as its ownership structure.

3f The data must be reviewed and updated quarterly by the vendor.

3g The subscription must provide the capability for the data to be exported to the user’s statistical software, primarily Excel and PowerBI.

3h The subscription must include an asset platform which allows ITA to compare assets, companies and value chains on a like-for-like basis.

3i The tool must provide visibility and functionality, with like-to-like comparisons of process-level emissions across assets and regions delivered quickly.

3j The tool must allow the user to create interactive graphs and tables on a digital platform.

3k The tool must allow the user to generate comparative insights with a dual perspective on costs and emissions.

3l The subscription must give ITA access to vendor expert analysts in all sections of the globe that are available to engage with users to assist with interpreting the data and dynamics of the local markets and cross country and cross plant comparisons.

3m The vendor must have a Help Desk to provide customer support locating data resources, the use of the emissions analysis tool and technical assistance as required. Should any erroneous data be discovered, it must be either augmented or corrected by the vendor within two business days.

4. Redistribution of Data It is imperative that ITA be allowed to internally redistribute the data obtained from the vendor’s databases, including the public online publication visualizations and derivative analytical products. Additionally, ITA shall be able to share aggregated and sufficiently transformed data with outside entities with CRU’s approval. Clear documentation must be provided of the ability to redistribute and publish with the dataset.

5. Place of Performance All data shall be available online 24/7 from any computer and be available for immediate download or analysis by the user.

6. Period of Performance Estimated Base Year: September 1, 2026 to August 30, 2027

Vendor Information:

CRU North American Headquarters 323 North Shore Drive Suite 320B Pittsburgh, PA 15212 Business Development Manager: Edelyn Capule Edelyn.capule@crugroup.com 724.313.7748 mailto:Anna.mccann@crugroup.com