FIELD: heating.
SUBSTANCE: cooling method of hydrocarbon flow, such as natural gas flow, involves at least the following stages: (a) heat exchange of hydrocarbon flow (10) with flow (20) of the first cooling agent, which leads to formation of cooled hydrocarbon flow (30), and at least partially evaporated flow (40) of cooling agent; (b) compression at least of partially evaporated flow (40) of cooling agent using one or more compressors (14, 16, 18), which leads to formation of flow (50, 60, 70) of compressed cooling agent; (c) cooling of flow (50, 60, 70) of compressed cooling agent with ambient medium after one or more compressions, which leads to formation of flow (70a) of cooled compressed cooling agent; (d) expansion of flow (70a) of cooled compressed cooling agent with formation of expanded flow (80) of cooling agent, and (e) additional cooling of expanded flow (80) of cooling agent, which leads to formation of at least partially condensed flow of cooling agent.
EFFECT: use of the above invention will allow increasing the efficiency of cooling process.
15 cl, 3 dwg
