Among the imported equipment provided by our company to customers, several pressure vessels are involved. Since the state issued regulations requiring pressure vessels to obtain usage registration certificates, some provinces and cities have implemented them very well, while others have not yet fully enforced them.

In a project signed last year, we were required to handle the registration certificate for the use of pressure vessels. Unfortunately, the cooling capacity involved in this project was particularly large, and it was necessary to select condensers and oil separators with extremely large capacity. None of the products available for selection abroad had SELO certification (Manufacturing License for Imported Pressure Vessels). Moreover, in our contract, there is only the sentence that requires helping the customer handle the pressure vessel usage registration certificate, and there is no mention of any content related to SELO certification at all. So our foreign colleagues asked me to help look up relevant standards in China to see if SELO certification was a necessary condition.

It took me a full two days to look up various standards related to pressure vessels. After integrating them, I finally figured out the following points:

The pressure vessels we are involved in belong to fixed pressure vessels. For imported pressure vessels, a conformity declaration and comparison table should be provided.

Foreign pressure vessel manufacturers must obtain SELO certification, that is, the manufacturing license for imported pressure vessels.

In addition, various certification documents during the design and manufacturing process of pressure vessels, as well as third-party certification documents, are also required.

Generally, large-capacity oil separators and condensers are mostly used in the Marine industry. However, the Marine industry has its own inspection and supervision requirements for refrigeration equipment, and it is to certify the entire equipment without the need for SELO certification for individual products. This is also the reason why many foreign suppliers have not applied for SELO certification in China for large-capacity refrigeration components.

On second thought, the regulations related to boilers and pressure vessels in our country are too general. They are a typical case of doing everything at once. The components of boilers, refrigeration equipment and air conditioning equipment are all placed together and must be subject to the same regulations. No wonder many provinces and cities have not yet adopted complete supervision over the pressure vessels involved in refrigeration equipment...