Pretreatment, pre-cooling, and condensate recovery of natural gas by high pressure compression and expansion

An apparatus for liquefaction of a natural gas stream, comprising:

• a first heat exchanger that cools at least a portion of the natural gas stream to generate a cooled natural gas stream, said cooled natural gas stream being combined with the natural gas stream;
• a first separation device configured to remove heavy hydrocarbons from the natural gas stream to generate a separated natural gas stream and a separator bottom stream, wherein the separated natural gas stream is directed to the first heat exchanger to act as a coolant therein, thereby generating a pretreated natural gas stream;
• a compression and cooling unit that compresses and cools the pretreated natural gas stream to form a chilled pretreated natural gas stream;
• wherein a portion of the chilled pretreated natural gas stream is recycled to the first heat exchanger as a recycle stream to exchange heat with one or more process streams comprising at least one of the portion of the natural gas stream and the separated natural gas stream, thereby generating a cooled recycle stream;
• wherein the recycle stream is introduced to the first heat exchanger separately from any other streams;
• a temperature and pressure reducing device configured to reduce a temperature and a pressure of the cooled recycle stream;
• a fourth separation device that receives all of the cooled recycle stream from the temperature and pressure reducing device and separates the cooled recycle stream into a gaseous separator overhead stream and a reflux stream, and wherein the reflux stream is directed to a top portion of the first separation device;
• wherein all of the separated natural gas stream and all of the natural gas stream bypass the fourth separation device;
• and
• at least one liquefaction unit configured to liquefy a remaining portion of the chilled pretreated natural gas stream.