Thank you for your comments. In fact, I spent two and a half years living in Thunder Bay, operating the pulp and paper facility. I'm very grateful for the time I've spent in northwestern Ontario.
Those duties are averages. In Resolute's case, the combined rate that we pay is 30%. That's what we're paying now. I'm happy to get into the details, but it is significantly higher than the average.
Typically, the distance between the preliminary rates and the final rates tends to be fairly close, but I should point out that the rates are reset every year. The way the Department of Commerce works is that sales, and therefore prices, are the denominator. Therefore, when prices increase from one year over the other, it makes for a lower duty rate, and the opposite is also true.
Based on the year of assessment—we're talking about 2019—they concluded that the smaller sales for lower prices created a higher rate.
One would expect that should prices adjust, the rates could come down. For example, last year our rate was 20%. We've gone from 17%, to 20% to 30%. For this year, the rates announced for Resolute are going to be 20%, based, as you pointed out, on the preliminary.
We'll see what the Department of Commerce concludes. I wouldn't expect them to stray too far from their preliminary AR assessment.