The calculation of critical points in petroleum fluids and other multicomponent mixtures is important for practical and theoretical reasons. For certain applications, there is a need for the calculation of critical point as many 108 times with the change in composition. There is currently no algorithm that enjoys both robustness and efficiency (that is, speed) to be used for such a purpose. In this work, we propose a simple algorithm that has remarkable efficiency and robustness. It is orders of magnitude faster than the existing algorithms which are known to be robust. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.