TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: The process involves converting hydrocarbon to a mixture of carbon oxide(s) and hydrogen in a syngas reactor; passing the mixture of carbon oxide(s) and hydrogen from the syngas reactor to a conversion reactor; and reacting the mixture in the conversion reactor in the presence of a particulate catalyst to form alcohols. The saturated 1-3C monocarboxylic acid and/or its ester with monohydric aliphatic 1-4C paraffinic alcohol added to the conversion reactor comes from the oxygenates obtained from the conversion reactor as by-products, and are separated from the alcohols.Preferred Components: The carbon oxide and the hydrogen containing feedstocks are synthesis gas or syngas. The oxygen containing hydrocarbon compounds are alcohols. The particulate catalyst is a particulate modified molybdenum sulphide based catalyst, or a modified methanol based catalyst and/or a modified Fischer-Tropsch catalyst. The saturated 1-3C monocarboxylic acid and/or its ester with a monohydric 1-4C aliphatic paraffinic alcohol are methyl acetate and/or ethyl acetate. EXAMPLE - A solution A was prepared by dissolving ammonium molybdate tetrahydrate (30 g) in ammonium sulfide aqueous solution (22 wt.%) and stirred for 1 hour at 60degreesC. A solution B was prepared by dissolving cobalt acetate (21 g) in deionized water (400 cm3). Solutions A and B were transferred into two separate dropping funnels. The solutions were simultaneously added to a stirred solution of aqueous acetic acid (30 wt.%) over a 1 hour period at 50degreesC to give a cobalt/molybdenum sulfide precipitate. The precipitate in acetic acid was allowed to stir for 1 hour before filtering under vacuum. The filtrate was dried at room temperature for 18 hours and was subsequently calcined in a furnace at 500degreesC under an atmosphere of nitrogen for 1 hour. The catalyst was prepared by grinding of the calcined precipitated cobalt/molybdenum sulphide (6.6 g) with Bentonite clay (2 g) and potassium carbonate (1 g). The catalyst (9.6 g) was loaded into a tubular reactor (15 mm internal diameter) and a carborundum pre-heat mixing zone (20 cm3) loaded upstream of the catalyst and brought to 200degreesC in 100 BarG nitrogen. The catalyst was brought to a reaction temperature of 310degreesC in carbon monoxide (CO): hydrogen (H2) gas (1:1) at 100 barg pressure at a flow rate giving a gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of less than or equal to1300 per hour. The reaction was allowed to run for 125 hours on stream after which point a 5 mol% flow of methanol was fed to the reactor, after 240 hours on stream an additional 2 mol% flow of methyl acetate was added to the reactor. It was found that the addition of methyl acetate to the reactor feed a significant improvement in ethanol productivity relative to propanol and methane productivities was achieved.