To investigate producer gas methanation, the well-dispersed NiO/SBA-15 with high loading was prepared by a simple heat treatment (HT) and a conventional solvent impregnation (SI) method. With low NiO loading, the NiO particles were preferentially dispersed on the outer surface of SBA-15 by HT method. However, with the SI method, the particles were preferentially occluded into the SBA-15 pores. With high NiO loading, there was no difference caused by preparation method in NiO particles location. The preparation method affected the temperature achieved the maximum conversion. The producer gas conversion increased with increasing NiO loading, regardless of the preparation method. When the NiO loading exceeded 50 wt.%, the CH4 selectivity was 100%. The NiO/SBA-15 by HT method had high thermal stability under methanation, while by SI method only the NiO/SBA-15 with high loading had high thermal stability. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.