Rentech Receives Final Air Permit for its Port St. Joe Renewable Energy Project

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rentech, Inc. (NYSE AMEX: RTK) announced today that it has received the final air permit for the Company’s proposed Port St. Joe Renewable Energy Center (Port St. Joe Project).

The Port St. Joe Project has been issued the final air permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and has received all significant permits from the State to allow start of construction of the planned project.

The project is designed to be the world’s first Biomass Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (BIGCC) project using the Rentech-SilvaGas biomass gasifier to provide synthesis gas to an advanced high efficiency combined-cycle power plant to produce approximately 55 megawatts net of renewable low-carbon baseload electric power (RenPower^TM) from approximately 930 dry tons per day of woody biomass. The project has a Power Purchase Agreement with Progress Energy of Florida which has been approved by the Florida Public Service Commission.

Rentech has signed a detailed term sheet with White Construction for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work that is intended to serve as a basis for a definitive lump-sum turn-key EPC contract. White Construction and Ford, Bacon & Davis LLC are finalizing the engineering work necessary to enter the EPC phase of the project. The proposed project site in Northwest Florida has access to barge, rail and highways as well as close proximity to feedstock.

About Rentech, Inc.

Rentech, Inc. (www.rentechinc.com), incorporated in 1981, provides clean energy solutions. The Company's Rentech-SilvaGas and Rentech-ClearFuels biomass gasification processes can convert multiple cellulosic biomass feedstocks into synthesis gas (syngas) for production of renewable fuels and power. Combining the gasification processes with Rentech's unique application of syngas conditioning and clean-up technology and the patented Rentech Process based on Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, Rentech offers an integrated solution for production of synthetic fuels from cellulosic biomass. The Rentech Process can also convert syngas from fossil resources into ultra-clean synthetic jet and diesel fuels, specialty waxes, and chemicals. Final product upgrading and acid gas removal technologies are provided under an alliance with UOP, a Honeywell company. Rentech develops projects and offers licenses for these technologies for application in synthetic fuels and power facilities worldwide. Rentech Energy Midwest Corporation, the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, manufactures and sells nitrogen fertilizer products including ammonia, urea ammonia nitrate, urea granule, and urea solution in the corn-belt region of the central United States.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about matters such as the characteristics of the renewable power to be produced from Rentech's technologies, the Company's development of its proposed renewable energy facility in Port St. Joe, Florida, and the timing and finalizing of satisfactory commercial agreements related to the project. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results may differ materially as a result of various risks and uncertainties. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements include the financial means of Rentech to build the proposed Port St. Joe project, fluctuations in commodities prices including the price of electric power and the materials necessary to construct projects, the impact of changing government regulations on the project permitting process and the qualification of renewable power and factors set forth in the Company's press releases and periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available via Rentech's web site at www.rentechinc.com. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release, and Rentech does not undertake to revise or update these forward-looking statements, except to the extent that it is required to do so under applicable law.