The objective of this research was to selectively oxidize methane to C{sub 2} hydrocarbons and to oxygenates, in particular formaldehyde and methanol, in high space time yields using air at the oxidant under milder reaction conditions that heretofore employed over industrially practical oxide catalysts. The research carried out under this US DOE-METC contract was divided into the following three tasks: Task 1, maximizing selective methane oxidation to C{sub 2}{sup } products over promoted SrO/La{sub 2}O{sub 3} catalysts; Task 2, selective methane oxidation to oxygenates; and Task 3, catalyst characterization and optimization. Principal accomplishments include the following: the 1 wt% SO{sub 4}{sup 2{minus}}/SrO/La{sub 2}O{sub 3} promoted catalyst developed here produced over 2 kg of C{sub 2} hydrocarbons/kg catalyst/hr at 550 C; V{sub 2}O{sub 5}/SiO{sub 2} catalysts have been prepared that produce up to 1.5 kg formaldehyde/kg catalyst/hr at 630 C with low CO{sub 2} selectivities; and a novel dual bed catalyst system has been designed and utilized to produce over 100 g methanol/kg catalyst/hr at 600 C with the presence of steam in the reactant mixture.