We are a US company just starting the process of manufacture licensing of pressure vessels for the People's Republic of China. Can anyone with experience in this process offer insights, caveats, or recommendations? Any help would be appreciated.
Chinese companies generally accept ASME certified pressure vessels so you don't have to deal with their codes except that vessel is designed by Chinese but you can still request them to design according to ASME codes and they all know how to do it.
Sorry, I just want to be sure I understand what "manufacture licensing of pressure vessels" means in this post. Are you saying you are giving the license to a Chinese company to build your company's vessel design overseas?
No. As I understand it, a non-Chinese manufacturer must be registered or certified or something by the PRC in order to import a pressure vessel into China.
Like my earlier response, they typically accept ASME certificates so you don't have to do additional to get their certificates, only application paper work. I have done some researches for you but to carry out detailed 'leg work' it is best to get help from your local Chinese business partner and things will be much easier.
You must obtain a 'Maunfacture License of Special Equipment' for pressure vessel issued by General Administration of Quality Supervision,Inspection and Quarantine of the PRC (AQSIQ). An example looks like this:
For entire procedures and requirements to export pressure vessel into China, here is a detailed guidance on a local provincial government web site (Procedures for Manufacture Licensing of Boiler and Pressure Vessel):
Be prepared to show the Chinese auditors a good time. I work with many fabricators that have the Chinese SQL and many times the auditors have made specific requests for sightseeing tours or visits to tourist attractions in your area. They like to be wined and dined, as Chinese fabricators do for us when we qualify their shops to supply vessels to the US, it's the way they do business. If you are in a very good tourist area they may want to make multiply audit trips to truly make sure you are qualified. If you can find a Chinese consultant here in the US to help that would be good. Try Shanghai Morimastu office in Houston, they can help.
I'm a designer of pressure vessel in China,'China National Petroleum Corperation' and 'China Petrochemical Corperation' is likely to be a lion's share of your market.
On the other hand ,both they had Specialized pressure vessel manufacturers as the company I worked in, We are capable in most feilds,but sometimes customers asked us to use imported components in our products such as blind plate(We used to use products from pt and gd).
As friends said,ASME certified pressure vessels is widely accepted by us,and the most important,chinese leaders like to be wined and dined,that is to say, sometimes throwing a sop is important.
If this is for a one-off sale you may find that it is not worth it. You will spend a lot of time and money getting your China MLSE. We sent a few vessels to China last year and the cost of the audits, paperwork and MLSE consultant started adding up to about $50K with a lead time of 6-9 months. (From my research hiring a consultant is almost a must) We ended up hiring a shop that was already certified to perform the welding & inspection. We gave them our welding procedures & calculations but we did all the material procurement and fabrication. You may want to consider this option.
In any case Boilerone and Mikemet have it dead on. You will need to redo your QC manual, re-certify you material to meet their code requirements, and make sure you show the auditors a great time while they are visiting.
As an aside - the China MLSE had asked for our fabrication prints. We were very wary about doing so and ended up making new drawings that very vague and hard to decipher. They complained but eventually got over it. If your product is hard to reverse engineer, don't give up vital information.
Then you can ask or download some application forms.
Filling all forms and all paper water done.
You could send application to SELO.
Normally 10 working days later, SELO will inform you the application is accepted or not. if accepted, SELO will tell you which auditor you should invite. normally it is CSEI.
After auditing, you will get license.
I have 3 time successful application experience.
the guys in charge of this in SELO is Mr.Li, Jingzhen.