A method of removing water from an oxidative esterification reactor comprises the steps of: (a) performing an oxidative esterification reaction in the reactor; (b) removing the crude product stream from the reactor; (c) passing a first portion of the crude product stream directly to a product recovery zone; (d) introducing a second portion of the crude product stream to a distillation column to produce a column overhead stream and a column bottoms stream; (e) passing at least a portion of the column bottoms stream to a product recovery zone; and (f) recycling a recycle stream comprising at least a portion of the overhead stream to the reactor, wherein the recycle stream contains less than 1 weight percent water, based on the total weight of the recycle stream, and wherein the weight ratio of the first part to the second part is at least 1:10 and the amount of recycle stream recycled to the reactor is such that the reactor contains no more than 2.5% by weight of water, based on the weight of the reactor content.
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