Carlyle/Riverstone and Bunge Announce Major Ethanol Plant Initiative

8 September 2006

Carlyle/Riverstone Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund I, L.P. (CRREIF) and Bunge North America will jointly build ethanol plants resulting in ultimate production capacity of several hundred million-gallons-per-year by the end of 2008.

The plants will be adjacent to grain facilities controlled by Bunge in the US. CRREIF will be the majority owner of the facilities with Bunge retaining a minority interest in each plant. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In addition to its minority ownership, Bunge will provide project development and asset management services. Bunge will supply corn and energy inputs for the plants, market and distribute the plants’ outputs, including ethanol and distillers grains, and provide logistics and risk management services.

Biofuels are fast becoming an important segment of the domestic energy supply complex and we are excited to partner our capital and energy expertise with an integrated agribusiness of Bunge’s size and capabilities to quickly grow an ethanol enterprise with critical mass.

—Michael Hoffman, Managing Director of Riverstone

Riverstone Holdings LLC and The Carlyle Group are the co-general partners of Carlyle/Riverstone Global Energy and Power Funds. Riverstone, a New York-based energy and power focused private equity firm founded in 2000, has $6.5 billion under management. The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm with $44.3 billion under management.

In July, Riverstone and Carlyle announced plans with Green Earth Fuels to build two biodiesel facilities located on the Gulf Coast. Each facility will have the capacity to produce forty-three million gallons of biodiesel per year and is expected to be in production by mid to late 2007.