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New vs replacement - glass-lined equipment
What it is
Restoring the glass lining of an existing reactor rather than replacing the vessel. The old lining is stripped and new coats are fired on, extending asset life at a fraction of new-vessel cost
It is the service annuity attached to an installed base of glass-lined equipment
Impact on industries
- Counter-cyclical to new equipment sales - when chemical capex pauses, customers extend existing asset life instead, so the two revenue streams offset
- Margins exceed new equipment, and the work is captive to manufacturers with the furnace capacity and formulation to match the original lining
- Grows automatically with the installed base, so every vessel sold seeds decades of service revenue
- Requires furnace capacity and logistics to move heavy vessels, so it is geographically constrained by service-centre location