Governor George E. Pataki announced nearly $6 million in State funding to assist Western New York Energy in the development of the first state-of-the-art dry mill ethanol plant in New York State. The $87.4 million facility is to be located on 144 acres in the Town of Shelby, Orleans County.

BioEnergy International, a privately held, biotechnology company headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts, announced that it has commenced site work on its first biorefinery, a 108 million gallon per year ethanol plant located on land leased from the Lake Providence Port Commission in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana.

VeraSun Energy broke ground on its third ethanol biorefinery in Charles City, Iowa over the weekend. When complete, the biorefinery will produce 110 million gallons of ethanol and 353,000 tons of distillers dried grains (DDGs) annually from 39 million bushels of corn.