Steam reforming of methanol for production of hydrogen can be carried out over copper based catalyst. In the work presented here, the catalytic properties of a CuO/ZrO2 catalyst (8.5 wt%) synthesised by a templating technique were investigated with respect to activity, long term stability, CO formation, and response to oxygen addition to the feed. The results were obtained using a fixed bed reactor and compared to a commercial methanol synthesis catalyst CuO/ZnO/Al2O3. It is shown that, depending on the time on stream, the temporary addition of oxygen to the feed has a beneficial effect on the activity of the CuO/ZrO2 catalyst. After activation, the CuO/ZrO2 catalyst is found to be more active ( per copper mass) than the CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 system, more stable during time on stream ( measured up to 250 h), and to produce less CO. Structural characterisation by means of X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) reveals that the catalyst (as prepared) consists of crystalline, tetragonal zirconia with small domain sizes ( about 60 Angstrom) and small/disordered crystallites of CuO.