In a systematic study with a CH{sub 4}/air reactant mixture at 600 C and 0.1 MPa, it is demonstrated that among eight Cab-O-Sil supported redox transition metal oxide catalysts, a V{sub 2}O{sub 5}/SiO{sub 2} catalyst exhibited the highest productivities of formaldehyde and methanol. The effect of steam on enhancing the space time yields of the oxygenates was observed with the catalysts that were studied with this third component in the reaction mixture. With the vanadia-containing catalyst, it was shown that a loading of 2 wt% of V{sub 2}O{sub 5} on SiO{sub 2} produced the highest conversion of methane from a CH{sub 4}/air/steam = 4/1/1 reactant mixture and the highest productivities of both CH{sub 3}OH and HCHO. It was also shown that increasing the reactant flow rate (thereby decreasing the contact time) increased the space time yield of methanol but decreased the overall methane conversion level.