A facile approach is demonstrated for the preparation of hexagonal NiO porous nanoplates via surfactant self-assembly. These NiO nanoplates are produced via a singe-step process via thermal decomposition at high temperatures using a nickel salt and the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. The NiO nanostructures are hexagonal in shape with diameters of 300 nm and thickness of 20 nm. The NiO nanoplates are found to exhibit a beneficial specific capacitive performance of 286.7 F g(-1).