NOVELTY - Catalyst comprises a carrier aluminum oxide, complex of active component nickel oxide, ferric oxide or tungsten oxide/molybdenum, an assistant alkali metal or alkaline earth oxide, and a rare earth metal of at least one lanthanide series metal, scandium and yttrium. The completed catalyst comprises (in %): aluminum oxide (75-85), nickel oxide (15-25), magnesium oxide (1-5), lanthanum oxide (0.5-3) and sodium oxide (0.1-2).    USE - The catalyst is useful for compounding methane gas.    ADVANTAGE - The catalyst: exhibits good heat stability, high catalyzing activity and high space time yield of methane; enables the production of a large amount of gas, which aggravates the dispersion of particles and hence a porous surface is formed easily and catalyst activity is enhanced; and is highly heat stable and exhibits anti-carbon performance, due to the presence of alkali metal e.g. magnesium and sodium and rare earth element e.g. lanthanum.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are also included for:    (1) the preparation of the catalyst, comprising: (i) mixing aluminum nitrate and nickel nitrate, dissolving by de-ionized water, mixing and heating to 60 degrees C, adding the assistant agent in the solution in the nitrate form, raising the temperature of solution to 90 degrees C, (ii) adding carbamide or ammonium bicarbonate in the catalyst solution at 90 degrees C, where the molar ratio of carbamide or ammonium bicarbonate and the active component nickel is greater than 5, continuing to heat till decomposition, during which the large amount of bubbles appear and the color changes from green to bottle green and blue-green gradually, and completing the heating after the solution evaporates completely, (iii) drying the catalyst for 1-5 hours at 110-150 degrees C, heating and decomposing for 1-6 hours at 400-550 degrees C, to obtain the catalyst; and    (2) application of catalyst for compounding methane gas, where the volume airspeed of the compounded gas for processing the catalyst is 10000-70000 h-1, the pressure is 1-3 MPa, the temperature is 350-650 degrees C, and the rate value of hydrogen/carbon monoxide in the compounded gas is 3.5-4.