Patent ID: 8549876

Claim:
Method of cooling a hydrocarbon stream, the method comprising the steps of: (a) heat exchanging the hydrocarbon stream against a first refrigerant stream in a heat exchanger to provide a cooled hydrocarbon stream and an at least partly evaporated refrigerant stream; (b) compressing the at least partly evaporated refrigerant stream using one or more compressors to provide a compressed refrigerant stream; (c) cooling the compressed refrigerant stream in at least one ambient cooler, after one or more of the compressions, against ambient to provide an ambient-cooled compressed refrigerant stream; (d) dynamically expanding the ambient-cooled compressed refrigerant stream of step (c) in at least one dynamic expander before it is further cooled to provide an expanded refrigerant stream; and (e) further cooling the expanded refrigerant stream to provide an at least partially condensed refrigerant stream; wherein there is no further heat exchanger provided between the at least one ambient cooler and the at least one dynamic expander.