Pacific Ethanol Announces Commercial Operation For Idaho’s First Major Transportation Fuel Refinery

Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter To Join Pacific Ethanol In Celebrating The plant’s Grand Opening On May 16th

Sacramento, CA, April 29, 2008—Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (NASDAQ GM: PEIX), the largest West Coast-based marketer and producer of ethanol, today announced start-up is complete at its Magic Valley production facility in Burley, Idaho.  The company also released details of the opening ceremony for plant.

What: Grand Opening of Pacific Ethanol’s Magic Valley Production Facility

Where: 2600 Washington Avenue, Burley, Idaho

Neil Koehler, CEO and President of Pacific Ethanol, observed “This site expands our production footprint to new markets in the Western United States.  We’ve succeeded in the plant’s start up and are now able to produce enough ethanol to meet the renewable fuel needs of the entire state of Idaho, assuming a ten percent ethanol blend.  We look forward to the opening ceremony with Governor Otter, who also joined us last year in Burley for the plant’s groundbreaking.”

The 60 million gallon per year Burley facility is located on 177 acres, with access to the Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Idaho Railroad, and Interstate 84.  Burley is in the Magic Valley region of Idaho, where a resident population of over 300,000 dairy cattle and 100,000 feedlot cattle provide a ready local market for a key co-product of ethanol, wet distiller’s grain (WDG), a high protein feed source.  The plant will process 21 million bushels of corn per year, producing both ethanol and 500,000 tons of WDG annually.  According to the Idaho Department of Commerce, this project has created $7.2 million in additional household income in Cassia County.

Pacific Ethanol is the largest West Coast-based marketer and producer of ethanol.  Pacific Ethanol has ethanol plants in Madera, California; Boardman, Oregon; and Burley, Idaho and has an additional plant under construction in Stockton, California.  Pacific Ethanol also owns a 42% interest in Front Range Energy, LLC which owns an ethanol plant in Windsor, Colorado. Central to Pacific Ethanol’s growth strategy is its destination business model, whereby each respective ethanol plant achieves lower process and transportation costs by servicing local markets for both fuel and feed.  Pacific Ethanol’s goal is to achieve 220 million gallons per year of ethanol production capacity in 2008 and to increase total production capacity to 420 million gallons per year in 2010.  In addition, Pacific Ethanol is working to identify and develop other renewable fuel technologies, such as cellulose-based ethanol production and bio-diesel.

With the exception of historical information, the matters discussed in this press release including, without limitation, Pacific Ethanol’s belief that it will complete construction of the ethanol plant in Stockton within the next 14 months, Pacific Ethanol’s belief that the area’s concentration of cattle is sufficient to consume the expected wet distillers grain output from the plant to be located in Stockton and that the plant’s location will provide affordable access to fuel markets in California, and that Pacific Ethanol will have in excess of 220 million gallons of annual production capacity by mid-2008, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The actual future results of Pacific Ethanol could differ from those statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the ability of Pacific Ethanol to conform to the funding and other requirements of its recently completing debt financing; the ability of Pacific Ethanol to successfully and timely complete construction of its ethanol plants in Boardman, Oregon, Burley, Idaho, Calipatria and Stockton, California, the ability of Pacific Ethanol to timely complete, in a cost effective manner, its ethanol plant build-out program and to successfully capitalize on its internal growth initiatives; the ability of Pacific Ethanol to operate its plants at their planned production capacities; the price of ethanol relative to the price of gasoline; and those factors contained in the “Risk Factors” section of Pacific Ethanol’s Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 12, 2007.