Methods and computer readable media for performing a compositional reservoir simulation of a subterranean hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir is provided. Reduced variables for flash computations are utilized with a methodology of conditional stability testing for achieving optimal efficiency of phase behavior computations in a compositional reservoir simulator. A least abundant phase is selected as primary variables for a primary phase and a secondary phase is selected for a more abundant phase to ensure stability by not dividing by a value near zero due to the selection of the primary phase as being associated with phase which is the least abundant. A bounded interval may be used to limit solution changes in reduced variable algorithms to achieve greater stability of algorithms. Stability tests may be performed during flash computations using reduced variables by employing a direct residual form based on the definition of the reduced variables and the tangent-plane distance condition.
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