Madrid, November 8, 2005. - Abengoa Bioenergy, an Abengoa subsidiary that produces ethyl alcohol from vegetable products, has arranged the financing to construct its Ravenna facility, its fourth bioethanol plant, in Nebraska (USA). The plant will produce 330 million liters per year. A 90 million dollar credit has been obtained in the USA financial market to finance the project. Sixteen institutional investors are participating. The official agreement was closed on October 28, 2005.

The facility, the construction of which will commence immediately and which is scheduled for completion in 2007, will process around 800,000 tons of corn per year to produce ethanol, a renewable fuel and a substitute for gasoline. Ethanol is a non-toxic, water-soluble and biodegradable compound. In addition, according to the National Laboratory of Argonne, in Chicago, United States, the use of ethanol-blends reduces greenhouse effect gas emissions by between twelve to nineteen per cent compared with conventional gasoline.

Abengoa Bioenergy’s chairman and CEO, Javier Salgado, stated “we are committed to pursuing solutions that enable our energy dependability on oil to be reduced and to the production of environment-friendly fuels. This facility in Nebraska is an enormous addition to our presence in the United States and renews our undertaking to increase our activities in the country”.

When this facility is operative it will be the largest-capacity plant in Nebraska State, and one of the largest in the United States. “We are committed to finding ways to lessen the world’s dependence on oil, and to producing biofuels that are not harmful to the environment,” said Javier Salgado, President and Chief Executive Officer of Abengoa Bioenergy. “The Ravenna facility is a great addition because of its abundant supply of grain, and because we are comfortable continuing our long history of doing business in the state of Nebraska.”

Abengoa Bioenergy is the European leader in the production of bioethanol for biofuels, operating at present two bioethanol plants in Spain, Ecocarburantes Españoles and Bioetanol Galicia, with a total installed capacity of 150 and 170 million liters per year, respectively. Moreover, it is developing a third plant in Salamanca, Biocarburantes de Castilla y León, with a capacity of 200 million liters per year, of which five million will be obtained from the conversion of cereal biomass by means of a new technology being developed by Abengoa Bioenergy R&D. Abengoa Bioenergy is the second producer on a world-wide scale and the first in Europe. Abengoa Bioenergy is also the 5th producer in the US, with a installed capacity of 365 million liters. The production in the US is based on corn which provides the company with an expertise and technology to process this cereal into bioethanol.

Abengoa, mother company of Abengoa Bioenergy, is an industrial and technological company listed in Madrid stock exchange, with a capitalization over 657 million Euro (31/12/2004), which gives solutions for Sustainable Development, Information and Knowledge Society, and the Creation of Infrastructures. Operating four business areas: Bioenergy, being the second producer worldwide; Environmental Services, as European leader in some industrial waste segments; Information Technologies, as one of main actors at international scale with operations in Europe, America and Asia; and Engineering and Industrial Construction, being the leader in Spain and South America.