Introduction: Today, there are four main groups of methods for calculating the compressibility factor of natural gas: experimental measurements, equations of state, empirical correlations, modern methods based on genetic algorithms, neural networks, atomistic modeling (Monte Carlo method and molecular dynamics). A correctly chosen method can improve the accuracy of calculating gas reserves and predicting its production and processing. Aim: To find the optimal methods for calculating the z-factor following the characteristic thermobaric conditions. Methods: To determine the best method for calculating the compressibility factor, the effectiveness of using various empirical correlations and equations of state to predict the compressibility factor of hydrocarbon systems (reservoir gases and separation gases) of various compositions were evaluated by comparing numerical results with experimental data. Results and Discussion: Based on 824 experimental values of the compressibility factor for 235 various gas mixtures in the pressure range from 0.1 to 94 MPa and temperatures from 273 to 437 K, the optimal equation of state and empirical correlation dependence for accurate z-factor prediction was found. It is shown that for all gas mixtures the Peng-Robinson equation of state with the shift parameter and Brusilovsky equation of state allow achieving best results. For these methods, the average absolute relative error does not exceed 2%. Among the correlation dependences, the best results are shown by the Sanjari and Nemati Lay; Heidaryan, Moghadasi and Rahimi correlations with an error not exceeding 3%. Conclusions: It was found that for the proposed methods, the reduced pressure has a more significant effect on the accuracy of the calculated values than the reduced temperature. It is shown that when studying acid gas mixtures with a carbon dioxide content of more than 10%, the equations of state better describe the phase behavior of the system in comparison with empirical correlations.