Patent ID: 7530236

Claim:
A process to recover natural gas liquids (NGL) from liquid natural gas (LNG), comprising the steps of feeding partially vaporized LNG to a flash absorber, operating said flash absorber at a pressure of less than approximately 210 psia, withdrawing bottom product from said flash absorber, heating said withdrawn bottom product, feeding said heated bottom product to a demethanizer, compressing overhead product from said flash absorber, forming an LNG product stream by combining said compressed overhead product from said flash absorber with overhead product from said demethanizer, condensing said LNG product stream, feeding a first portion of said condensed LNG product stream to said flash absorber to aid separation of NGL from LNG, feeding a second portion of said LNG product stream to said demethanizer to aid separation of NGL from LNG, and withdrawing NGL from said demethanizer.