NATCHEZ — KiOR announced this week the company has acquired the financing necessary to start its Columbus II project, a precursor to its plans for a Natchez alternative fuels plant.

The financing commitments — an $85 million commitment from Khosla Ventures III and a $15 million commitment from Gates Ventures LLC, an affiliate of Bill Gates — were both contingent on the company fully funding the Columbus II project, which the company said it plans to do through a debt offering.

Chief Executive Officer Fred Cannon said he believes this financing will be the last equity portion of the Columbus II project, which he said would help the company achieve a positive cash flow sometime in 2015.

“We expect that expanding capacity at Columbus will de-risk project execution and allow us to showcase our R&D advancements at scale much quicker,” he said.

“KiOR still plans to continue to develop our standard scale commercial facility in Natchez. We currently intend to preferentially pursue either project-level financing or strategic partnerships for development of our standard scale commercial facilities, including Natchez, unless market conditions would make corporate-level financing more accretive and less dilutive to our shareholders.”

KiOR announced in mid-2012 it would build a cellulostic fuel production facility on the site of the former Belwood Country Club in the Natchez-Adams County Port area.

One of the necessary steps to getting Natchez off the ground, however was to get its Columbus facility — which was at the time under construction — into steady state production in order to approach financial markets to finance the Natchez project.

Columbus started shipping fuel in March, but in August Cannon announced the company was considering building a second Columbus facility — now known as Columbus II — before breaking ground in Natchez. The decision was finalized in late September, and Cannon said the company could better plan construction timing and costs because the Columbus II facility would essentially be a duplicate of the existing facility.

The CEO likewise said Columbus II might ultimately be used to finance the Natchez project.

When it is operational, the announced plans are for the Natchez facility to produce cellulostic fuel using pine wood products.

KiOR stock stood at $2.41 a share at the close of markets Wednesday.