In a process for the epoxidation of propene, comprising the steps of reacting propene with hydrogen peroxide, separating propene oxide and a recovered propene stream from the reaction mixture, separating propane from all or a part of the recovered propene stream in a C3 splitter column, and passing the overhead product stream of the C3 splitter column to the epoxidation step, a propane starting material with a propane fraction of from 0.002 to 0.10 is used, the epoxidation is operated to provide a propane fraction in the reaction mixture of from 0.05 to 0.20 and the C3 splitter column is operated to provide an overhead product stream which comprises a propane fraction of at least 0.04 in order to reduce the size and the energy consumption of the C3 splitter column.