VeraSun Energy Appoints Troy Shaner to Director of Process Improvement
Brookings, South Dakota, United States May 8, 2008

Fort Dodge, Iowa, Plant Manager to Lead Initiatives Focused on Efficiencies and Increased Production

VeraSun Energy Corp. (NYSE: VSE), one of the nation’s largest ethanol producers, today announced that Troy Shaner has been appointed to the position of Director of Process Improvement. Shaner has been serving as the plant manager for VeraSun’s Fort Dodge, Iowa, ethanol production facility since December 2004. In his new role, Shaner will be responsible for leading and directing the process improvement group with initiatives focused on efficiencies and increased production.

“Troy’s role in the area of process improvement will be extremely important to our company as we continue to optimize in all areas of production,” said Paul Caudill, VeraSun’s senior vice president, plant operations. “The ability to produce a clean, renewable fuel in an efficient, safe and environmentally-friendly manner is an important part of creating energy diversity for our nation.”

Shaner and his group will focus on enhanced systems and processes to all operating biorefineries in the VeraSun fleet with a focus on improvements in yield per bushel and energy efficiency. The Argonne National Laboratory recently released a study comparing the average efficiency of the ethanol industry from 2001 to 2006. The report showed that water consumption was down by more than 26 percent, grid electricity use was down by almost 15 percent and total energy was down by almost 22 percent.

“The ethanol industry has made significant progress over the past five years in how efficiently ethanol is being produced,” added Caudill. “However, it is important that we continue to work at developing improvements to the production process beyond today’s technology. Troy and his team will lead those efforts for VeraSun and we are excited about developing future advancements for our company.”

A native of the Fort Dodge area, Shaner graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering. He worked for BASF for 15 years in various production positions at polymer plants. In addition to leading the successful startup of the Fort Dodge facility in October 2005, Shaner has assisted with various fleet support opportunities with VeraSun, including the Charles City startup in April 2006. Shaner and his team at Fort Dodge have been among the leading VeraSun facilities in the areas of safety performance, production yields and energy efficiency.

VeraSun Energy Corporation (NYSE: VSE), headquartered in Brookings, S.D., is a leading producer of renewable fuel. Founded in 2001, the company has more than one billion gallons of annual ethanol production capacity through 11 operating facilities. Six additional facilities are currently either under construction or development with a combined capacity of 660 million gallons. Upon completion of the new facilities, VeraSun Energy will have an annual production capacity of approximately 1.75 billion gallons. The company announced it started construction at its Aurora facility to extract oil from dried distillers grains.

VeraSun markets E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline for use in Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs), directly to fuel retailers under the brand VE85®. For more information, please visit VeraSun Energy’s websites at www.verasun.com or www.VE85.com. Source: VeraSun