Experimental research in the direct conversion of methane to methanol using a double bed reactor and with gaseous steam as cofeed with the CH{sub 4}/air reactant mixture continued during this quarter in order to improve the methanol space time yield. Work was carried out along several pathways that included a stability test of the second bed catalyst 1%V{sub 2}O{sub 5}/SiO{sub 2} that yielded up to 100 g methanol/kg cat/hr and investigation of the effect of pressure on methanol yields. Redox dopants were put onto several metal oxide supports in an attempt to find better second bed catalysts. A catalyst that was reasonably selective towards oxygenates was obtained when SiO{sub 2} was used as the support and low quantities of Fe or Cu were utilized. Attempts were also made to incorporate alkali ions into the catalysts to improve the surface hydrolyzability. Experiments were carried out to examine the effect of pressure and temperature on the oxygenate productivity over a double-layered catalyst bed of 0.1 g 1 wt% SO{sub 4}{sup 2{minus}}/Sr/La{sub 2}O{sub 3} as the first bed and 0.1 g 1 wt% V{sub 2}O{sub 5}/SiO{sub 2} as the second bed without H{sub 2}O cofeed in a glass-lined tubular down-flow reactor at pressures of 0.1--3.2 MPa (14.7--460 psig), temperatures of 450--500 C, and with a reactant flow rate having a ratio of CH{sub 4}/air = 150/50 ml/min. Reaction products observed were methanol, formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, acetylene, ethylene, and ethane. The overall activity of the catalyst increased at low pressures and high temperature. However, testing at low temperature and high pressure was found to favor methanol production.