In this paper, the combination of dry reforming and partial oxidation of methane on nickel catalysts supported on mesoporous MgAl2O4 was investigated. The support was prepared by a facile sol-gel route using propylene oxide as a gelation agent. The characterizations of the catalysts were performed by BET, XRD, TPR, TPO, TPH, UV-vis, CO-dispersion, SEM and TEM techniques. In addition, the effects of nickel content, reaction and reduction temperatures, feed ratio and the GHSV value on the physicochemical and catalytic properties were studied. The results revealed that the nickel content had an optimum value of 7.5 wt% and the catalyst with this content of nickel exhibited the highest activity. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the increase in reaction temperature enhanced the rate of the dry reforming reaction and led to obtain a H-2/CO ratio around unity. The 7.5 wt% nickel catalyst showed a 5% decline in activity within 15 h in combined reforming. The TPO analysis showed that there was no deposited carbon on the catalyst surface in combined reforming and the SEM analysis confirmed the results of TPO analysis. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.