A comprehensive detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for methanol oxidation has been developed and validated against multiple experimental data sets. The data are from static-reactor, flow-reactor, shock-tube, and laminar-flame experiments, and cover conditions of temperature from pressure from and equivalence ratio from 0.05-633-2050 K, 0.26-20 atm, 2.6. Methanol oxidation is found to be highly sensitive to the kinetics of the hydroperoxyl radical through a chain-branching reaction sequence involving hydrogen peroxide at low temperatures, and a chain-terminating path at high temperatures. The sensitivity persists at unusually high temperatures due to the fast reaction of comparedThe branching ratio ofwas found to be a more important parameter under the higher temperature conditions, H O 2 due to the rate-controlling nature of the branching reaction of the H-atom formed through CH 3 O thermal decomposition.