Manufacture under tariff chapter notes requires marketability to the consumer or a specific deeming provision, not mere gas processing.

Compressing, filtering, drying and filling hydrogen gas received through a pipeline into cylinders was analysed as a possible manufacture under the relevant tariff chapter notes. The process removed moisture and oil impurities and prepared the gas for supply to industrial buyers, but it did not create a new commodity or render an unmarketable product marketable to the consumer. The chapter-note deeming provision for manufacture was held inapplicable on these facts, and the activity was treated as not amounting to manufacture. Accordingly, no duty was payable.

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Issues: Whether compressing, filtering, drying and filling hydrogen gas received through pipeline into cylinders renders the gas marketable to the consumer so as to amount to manufacture under the tariff chapter note.

Analysis: The activity consisted of receiving hydrogen gas through pipeline, compressing it, removing moisture and oil impurities, and filling it into returnable cylinders for supply to industrial buyers. Chapter Note 9 of Chapter 28 applies where an adopted treatment renders the product marketable to the consumer, while Chapter Note 5 of Chapter 27 specifically treats compression of natural gas for marketing as CNG as manufacture. The same chapter-note logic was not attracted here because the buyers were industrial users and processors, not consumers in the relevant sense. The gas was also already marketable in its original form, and the process did not create a new commodity or render an unmarketable product marketable.

Conclusion: The activity did not amount to manufacture and no duty was payable.

Ratio Decidendi: A process amounts to manufacture under a chapter note only if it renders a non-marketable product marketable to the consumer or otherwise falls within the specific statutory deeming provision applicable to that commodity.

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