When an imported reactor goes wrong, the failure is rarely a surprise. It was usually a decision that nobody checked at the time. These five checks are cheap, and each one has caught real problems.
Check 1: the supplier's manufacturing licence
A workshop making pressure vessels should hold a special equipment manufacturing licence. Ask for a scan with the licence number visible, and check the scope covers pressure vessels and the material involved. A supplier who cannot produce this is not a manufacturer.
Check 2: the specification against your medium
Before comparing prices, confirm that every quotation describes the same thing: lining thickness, jacket type, seal type, agitator form, nozzle standard, design pressure and design temperature. It is common for a cheap quotation to be a different vessel wearing the same description.
Check 3: the test records, agreed in advance
Agree in the contract what will be tested and what you will receive: main seam radiography, hydrostatic test, dimensional inspection and the 20 kV spark test record for the lining. Records that are promised afterwards are frequently not produced.
Check 4: inspection before loading
Arrange for the vessel to be photographed and, ideally, physically inspected before it is crated. Once it is inside a container and on the water, the cost of discovering a defect is a return shipment.
Check 5: the licensing route, if it applies
Glass-lined reaction and storage vessels with a volume between 0.1 and 20 m³ fall under China's dual-use items export licensing regime. The licence takes time and must be applied for by a qualified party. Establish before signing who applies, how long it takes and who bears the cost — otherwise a finished vessel can sit in a yard for weeks.
The pattern is the same in every case: the problem was detectable at the time, and nothing in the process was designed to detect it. Five checks are cheaper than one container going back.
If you would rather not run all five yourself from another continent, that is exactly the work an export agent does on your behalf — and the reason the agent exists.