Hitachi H-25 Gas Turbine in Oil and Gas Market 14

Hitachi H-25 Gas Turbine in Oil and Gas Market

Shunichi Kuba, Dr. Eng. OVERVIEW: The Hitachi H-25 is a heavy-duty 30-MW class gas turbine.
Koji Yasuda The first unit started operation in 1989 at a domestic petrochemical plant
and total orders for the turbine have reached to 120 units. The H-25 is used
Yasuhiro Katou
not only in Japan but all over the world in various fields such as at power,
Kenji Kamino industrial, and oil and gas plants. The oil and gas market is growing strongly
but has special characteristics and extremely severe requirements including
special specifications and demand for high reliability. The high performance,
reliability, and flexibility of the H-25 gas turbine have helped this field grow
by meeting customer demands.

INTRODUCTION plants, which are huge and complex systems, is

HIGHER performance and efficiency are an eternal dependent on continuous operation without plant
theme in gas turbine applications. In addition to the shutdown. Therefore, only companies that have
technologies needed to meet these requirements, the products which meet this criteria can enter this field.
increased awareness of global environmental problems The company must have appropriate engineering
in recent times has also led to demand for improved capabilities, maintain detailed operational records, and
environmental performance. be able to cover company liabilities, so that it is
Against this background, combined plants qualified by major oil companies.
[consisting of a gas turbine, HRSG (heat recovery In addition, after an order is received, various
steam generator), and steam turbine] have become a factory tests need to be performed to verify the
standard feature of large power plants operated by reliability prior to shipment. It is common for gas
electricity companies. These combined plants use turbine vendors to ship units without running tests at
bigger gas turbines powered by clean fuels [LNG the factory because gas turbines are fully standardized
(liquefied natural gas) or NG (natural gas)] to achieve machines and no design changes are made to the gas
high efficiency and minimum environmental impact. turbine components such as the nozzle, blades and
On the other hand, the medium-sized gas turbine casing. Only auxiliary systems such as the starting
systems used at industrial plants, regional heat and mechanism, lube oil system, and instrumentation are
power utilities, refineries and LNG plants, and modified for specific projects. However, in the oil and
elsewhere require features such as high reliability and gas market, running at no-load mechanical test of the
fuel flexibility as well as high performance. gas turbine at the factory is a minimum requirement.
This paper discusses the characteristics of the oil In some cases, a load test must be performed at a
and gas market and how the H-25 plays an important vendor’s test facility. In the severest case, full load
role in this market. string testing is performed using the project generator
and auxiliaries such as the inlet system. The purpose
CHARACTERISTICS OF OIL AND GAS of this testing is to avoid trouble at the site and to prove
MARKET the performance of gas turbine.
Key features of the oil and gas market are
summarized below. High Performance
Only qualified companies can bid for these projects,
Reliability and only the vendor who submits the most attractive
The most important factor in this field is reliability proposal gets the order. A recent trend is to consider
because the profitability of refineries and chemical overall cost-performance. Because reliability is the
 Hitachi Review Vol. 58 (2009), No. 1 15

most important factor, the oil and gas market has long
been characterized by the use of heavy-duty machines
with low firing temperatures. However, demand for
higher performance has increased recently, and aero-
derivative gas turbines are also used as a response to
the increasing cost of fuel. The cost-performance is
evaluated not only on the output and heat rate but also Overseas : 92 units
H-25
maintenance and other costs in relation of gas turbine H-15 Domestic: 28 units
Total : 120 units
operation.
120 120
Fuel Flexibility Domestic
100 100
For environmental and performance factors, NG is Overseas
Cumulative units
the dominant fuel used in gas turbines at power utility 80 80

No. of unit
First exported unit put
companies. However, in the oil and gas or 60 into operation 60
petrochemical fields, many types of fuel such as 40 40
Overseas promotion
distillate, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), and off-gas 20 launched 20
are used in addition to natural gas. Dual fuel systems
0 0
(gas/oil, gas/gas) are also popular due to plant ’87 ’88’89’90’91’92’93’94’95’96’97’98’99’00’01’02’03’04’05’06’07’08

operation flexibility. Year of order

The most difficult fuel to use is off-gas. Off-gases

are by-products from a refinery or chemical plant. This Fig. 1—H-25 Gas Turbine Order Records.
gas is cheap and, if it can be used as a fuel of gas The graph shows deliveries of H-25 gas turbines in Japan and
overseas. H-25 gas turbines have been operating reliably in
turbine, it is beneficial to the oil company because they
various different environments ranging from the extreme cold of
are a very economical fuel. However, off-gases Russia (–48°C) to the intense heat of Iraq (54°C)
normally include heavy gases such as propane,
sometimes include corrosive elements which are
difficult to handle because the component gases can TABLE 1. H-25 Users
The table shows breakdown of H-25 users.
vary widely.
Oil and gas 60
Special Specifications
Electric companies and IPPs 45
Projects in this market often involve special
specifications. Typical examples are the API Other industries 8
(American Petroleum Institute) standards, a set of usual Regional heat and power 4
standards in the petrochemical industry. These
Research and development 3
standards include not just the main API 616 standard
(Gas Turbines for the Petroleum, Chemical, and Gas Total 120 units
Industry Services). All the related API standards for IPPs: independent power products
lube oil systems, gears, heat exchangers, pumps, and
similar are referred to in the specifications. One of the
purposes of these high-grade requirements is to achieve During the first decade after the delivery of the first
the highest level of reliability. It is very important to unit, the H-25 has been mainly used in cogeneration
comply with these specifications. In addition to the plants at domestic petrochemical companies. Based
API specifications, special specifications used by on its proven capabilities and its track record during
major oil companies, such as the DEP (Design and that period, Hitachi delivered the first unit for overseas
Engineering Practice) of Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) use to the Republic of Korea in 2000. Since then, order
standards, are also used. These extensive standards volumes have grown rapidly with total international
impose very severe requirements. orders reaching 120 this year (see Fig. 1). The figures
include five H-15 turbines. The H-15 is a scaled down
HISTORY OF H-25 GAS TURBINE model of the H-25.
In 1988, the first H-25 was delivered to the Table 1 shows the industries where the H-25
Tokuyama Oil Refinery of Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. turbines are used. As shown in the table, the oil and
 Hitachi H-25 Gas Turbine in Oil and Gas Market 16

Compressor Combustor Turbine

Premixed Premixer Flow sleeve
combustion
(F2) nozzle Diffusive Combustion
combustion liner
(F1) nozzle Transition
piece

To turbine

Fig. 2—H-25 Cross Section. Compressor discharge air

H-25 gas turbine has simple structure which consists of three
main parts, compressor, combustor and turbine.
Fig. 3—LNC Cross Section.
LNC (low NOx combustor) consists of diffusive combustion (F1)
TABLE 2. H-25 Structural Features and premixed combustion (F2) nozzles.
The table shows specifications of main components.
Component Design

• 17-stage axial type MCrAlY alloy layer

Compressor Substrate Substrate
• Pressure ratio: 14.7 Ceramic layer

Combustion

Combustion
Cooling air

Cooling air
• 3-stage impulse type
Turbine • Air cooled 1st and 2nd stage nozzle and bucket

gas

gas
• TBC on 1st bucket
Temperature
• Reverse flow type Tg
Tg
• Conventional type or dry low NOx type Ts2
Combustor • Slot cooling T
Ts1 T =Barrier
• TBC on transition piece effect
Tair Tair
TBC: thermal barrier coating (1) With TBC (2) Without TBC
(a) Bucket with TBC (b) Theory of TBC

Tg: combustion gas temperature

gas industry represents the largest market. Ts1, Ts2: Surface temperature of substrate
Tair: cooling air temperature

FEATURES OF H-25 GAS TURBINE Fig. 4—TBC Technology for H-25 Gas Turbines.
Design Philosophy and Structural Features By appling TBC on bucket, temperature of the substrate will be
The H-25 is a 30 MW class heavy-duty, single- decreased, and its reliability will increase.
shaft gas turbine with horizontal split casings. Fig. 2
shows a cross section of the H-25.
Heavy-duty gas turbines are developed primarily barrier coating) and its theory of operation. Use of a
for industrial use and have the following advantages ceramic coating with high heat resistance on the
over aero-derivative gas turbines. substrate (base metal) means the surface temperature
(1) Continuous operation (reliability) of the substrate is lower than when TBC is not used. It
(2) Ease of maintenance (site maintenance) is estimated that use of TBC reduces the temperature
(3) Fuel flexibility by more than 50°C. This increases the reliability of
A heavy-duty gas turbine consists of three parts: a the material for the same level of firing temperature.
compressor, a turbine, and a combustor. Table 2 lists It can also provide higher efficiency because the firing
the characteristics of each component. temperature can be increased while still keeping the
Fig. 3 shows the cross section of a typical LNC substrate at the same temperature.
(low NOx combustor). The total number of LNC units
delivered has already reached 40. The latest LNC Special Features
technology used in the H-25 achieves performance of The H-25 has the following special characteristics.
18.7 ppmvd @ 15% O2 available. High reliability
Fig. 4 shows the 1st stage bucket with TBC (thermal More than 70 units are now in commercial
 Hitachi Review Vol. 58 (2009), No. 1 17

operation, and the total operating time of these turbines TABLE 3. H-25 Reliability Record
exceeds 1.4 million hours. A project to research the The table shows extremely high H-25 reliability.
reliability of continuously operating H-25s in Japan Operating hour RF
was carried out in 2006. Three units with an operating Unit A 126,886 h (As of Aug. 2004) 99.69 %
time in excess of 100,000 hours were selected. Table
Unit B 120,767 h (As of Aug. 2004) 99.88 %
3 summarizes the reported results. The RF (reliability
factor) is calculated in accordance with ISO3977-9. Unit C 105,234 h (As of Dec. 2003) 99.88 %
The results in the table demonstrate the extremely high RF: reliability factor
reliability of the H-25.
Fuel flexibility TABLE 4. Types of Fuel
Table 4 lists the fuels used in the H-25. The table The table shows fuels used for H-25 gas turbines. 44 units have
dual fuel system.
indicates the importance of fuel flexibility in this
market. The fuels used include natural gas, distillate, Natural gas 94 units
and LPG. The difference of 44 between the total Distillate oil 46
number of H-25 turbines in service and the number of
different fuels used indicates the number of dual fuel Off gas 15

units. One important fuel is off-gas generated as a by- LPG 6

product at oil and gas plants. If it can be used in the Kerosene 3
gas turbine, off-gas is a very cheap fuel source. On
the other hand, the content of the off-gas can vary Coke gas (low calorie gas) 2

widely and may include corrosive substances or drains. Total 166

It is very difficult to handle such a fuel and use it as a
LPG: liquefied petroleum gas
suitable auxiliary fuel system that incorporates a gas
fuel booster system. The engineering capability to do
this is the key technology. TABLE 5. H-25 Performance
The table shows H-25 performance at ISO conditions.
High level of engineering capability
Item Unit Natural gas Distillate oil
As mentioned in “CHARACTERISTICS OF OIL
AND GAS MARKET,” gas turbines often require Output MW 31 30
special specifications such as API and major oil Gross efficiency (LHV) % 34.8 33.6
company specifications. Hitachi can supply the best
Airflow kg/s 92.4 92.4
solutions to these requirements. In addition, the gas
turbines used at oil and gas plants are normally Exhaust temperature °C 564 564
purchased through engineering companies such as LHV: lower heating value
M.W. Kellogg Limited (Kellogg), Toyo Engineering
Corporation (TEC), JGC Corporation (JGC), and
Chiyoda Corporation (Chiyoda). These engineering cogeneration plants and combined plants to run at
companies are familiar with these severe specifications maximum efficiency.
and require considerable engineering documentation Table 5 shows the performance of the H-25. The
to verify quality at both the quotation stage and during H-25 achieves an output of 31 MW and gross thermal
the project stages after the order has been made. efficiency of 34.8 % LHV (lower heating value) when
Satisfying these demands requires the highest level of fired with natural gas. This performance is remarkably
engineering capabilities. That is a reason why Hitachi high for a heavy duty gas turbine in this range. It allows
has been able to supply H-25s successfully to Kellogg, cogeneration plants and combined plants to run at
TEC, JGC, Chiyoda and in addition major oil higher efficiency. In a combined cycle plant, a gross
companies such as Shell and Petrobras Brasil. thermal efficiency of 50 % or more is possible.

Performance EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS IN OIL AND GAS

Based on modern materials, coatings, cooling and INDUSTRY
aerodynamics technologies, the H-25 has the highest Sakhalin II Project in Russia
thermal efficiency of any heavy-duty 30 MW class This is a well-known big project (see Fig. 5). Not
gas turbines. The efficiency of the H-25 enables only is the equipment exposed to severe environmental
 Hitachi H-25 Gas Turbine in Oil and Gas Market 18

Fig. 5—H-25 Gas Turbines in Sakhalin II Project in Russia.

Hitachi delivered four H-25 gas turbines generation equipment Fig. 7—Overview of Betara H-25 Plant.
units to the Sakhalin Energy Investment Co., Ltd., for use in a Hitachi delivered three H-25 gas turbine generator sets to
land-side plant that processes gas and oil extracted from the Betara plant in Indonesia.
seabed off the eastern shore of Sakhalin Island in Russia.

G G G
13.8 kV

G M M
DEG 5,800 kW 4,800 kW 2,850 kW
×3 ×3 ×3

Load 480 V

Fig. 6—Overview of Damietta H-25 Plant in Egypt.

Hitachi delivered five H-25 gas turbine generator sets to M Load
M M 850 kW
Damietta LNG plant through Kellogg, an engineering company. 2,990 kW 1, kW ×2
480 V
Load
G: generator
DEG: diesel engine generator
M: motor

conditions, but it must also comply with the most Fig. 8—Electrical System of Betara H-25 Plant.
severe Shell specifications. The minimum ambient Three H-25 gas turbines are connected to 13.8 kV line and
temperature reaches –48°C. In order to endure such supply electricity to the motors for gas compressors.
severe conditions, material selection and systematic
design were carefully done. The facility has four sets
of H-25 gas turbines and heat recovery units in total.
All of these use dry low NOx combustors. Also, two Betara Project in Indonesia
of the sets are dual fuel (gas and oil) units to increase This is an example of using the H-25 in a gas
operational flexibility. booster compressor plant (see Figs. 7 and 8).
Hitachi received an order for three H-25 sets from
Damietta Plant in Egypt Petrochina International Jabung. This plant receives
This plant is located in a hot desert area. Hitachi gas and liquid from tens of nearby gas fields, then
received an order for five H-25 sets from the well- separates the liquid from gas to produce refined natural
known Kellogg engineering company (see Fig. 6). The gas. The plant requires hot gas to recondition the
order specified the API specifications and special molecular sieve of the drier which removes water from
measures for dealing with the sandy conditions were the processed gas and uses exhaust heat from the H-
required. 25. Each of the three H-25 units is equipped with a
 Hitachi Review Vol. 58 (2009), No. 1 19

WHRU (waste heat recovery unit) that treats the The increase in the number of turbines delivered since
processed gas and uses it for reconditioning the 2000 when overseas promotion first started is
molecular sieve. The refined natural gas produced by remarkable. The number has reached 110 units out of
the plant is carried by pipeline for use as city gas or a total of 120 units. We believe this is because the
fuel for power generation, while the separated reliability and high performance of the H-25 have
hydrocarbon liquid is sent to another plant for become recognized in the market, especially in the oil
separation and refining into LPG for export. and gas market. We would like to contribute to growing
Standard practice in gas compression plants has the oil and gas market through endless efforts to
been to use mechanically driven gas turbines with two achieve higher reliability and performance.
shafts. A special feature of this plant, however, is that
H-25s which drive generators and motor-driven REFERENCES
compressors are used instead of mechanically driven (1) Y. Kojima, “Latest Technical Trends in Heat-resistant Coating,”
gas turbines with two shafts. This system was selected A Collection of Documents for the 34th Gas Turbine Seminar
for reasons of total plant availability and maintenance (Jan. 2006).
cost. Such a system is only made possible by use of (2) T. Saito et al., “Development of Low-NOx Combustors Based
on DME and LNG,” Japan Gas Turbine Society, Vol. 34, No. 5
the highly reliable H-25.
(Sep. 2006).
(3) H. Tsuruta et al., “H-25 Gas Turbines for PetroChina’s Betara
CONCLUSIONS Complex Development in Indonesia,” Hitachi Hyoron 88,
This paper has introduced the Hitachi H-25 gas pp.221-224 (Feb. 2006) in Japanese.
turbine and explained how the H-25 gas turbine has (4) I. Takehara, “Power Generation Systems Based on Gas
played an important role in the oil and gas market. Turbine,” Japan Gas Turbine Society, Vol. 31 (May 2003).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shunichi Kuba, Dr. Eng. Yasuhiro Katou

Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1979, and now works at the Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1980, and now works at the
Turbine Design Department, Hitachi Works, the Turbomachinery R&D Center, the Energy and
Power Systems. He is currently engaged in gas Environmental System Laboratory, the Power
turbine system design. Dr. Kuba is a member of the Systems. He is currently engaged in the development
Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME). of turbomachinery technology. Mr. Katou is a
member of JSME and GTSJ.
Koji Yasuda
Joined Hitachi, Ltd in 1971, and now works at the Kenji Kamino
Thermal Power Systems Division, the Overseas Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1980, and now works at the
Thermal Power Business Development Department, Nuclear & Thermal Power Department, the
the Power Systems. He is currently working on sales International Operations Division, the Marketing
engineering for gas turbine power generation. Mr. Group, the Power Systems. He is currently engaged
Yasuda is a member of the Gas Turbine Society of in Iberia & Latin America/H-25 Gas Turbine project.
Japan (GTSJ).