KiOR Inc. announced initial shipments of cellulosic diesel from its first commercial-scale facility in Columbus, Miss., where the company uses pine wood chips that previously fed a now-defunct paper mill to produce cellulosic gasoline and diesel fuels. The $213 million facility is scaled to process 500 bone dry tons of sustainably harvested woody biomass per day. It can produce more than 13 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and fuel oil blendstocks annually.

KiOR's renewable gasoline is also the first renewable cellulosic gasoline registered by U.S. EPA for sale in the U.S.

Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State and a current member of KiOR's board of directors, said, “KiOR is changing the American energy equation by innovating and commercializing an entirely new generation of hydrocarbon-based diesel and gasoline fuel. By making the promise of cellulosic fuels a reality, KiOR demonstrates that these fuels are an attractive option for lessening America's dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Haley Barbour, former Governor of Mississippi, who was instrumental in attracting KiOR to Mississippi, said, “The shipment of this first fuel from KiOR's Columbus, Miss., facility is the culmination of a vision to establish Mississippi as the birthplace of the wood-to-fuels production technology. This progress highlights our highly skilled labor force, abundant natural resources and supportive government climate for innovative companies like KiOR seeking a home to expand their businesses. Mississippi has partnered with KiOR throughout this history-making project, contributing economic development support ranging from research and testing projects within our world class universities, to technical training within our superb community college system.”

“This is a major step forward for KiOR, the biofuels industry and the entire renewable fuels sector,” said Fred Cannon, KiOR's president and CEO. “With first production at Columbus, KiOR has technology with the potential to resurrect each and every shut down paper mill in the country and to replace imported oil on a cost-effective basis while creating American jobs. This facility demonstrates the efficacy of KiOR's proprietary catalytic biomass-to-fuel process with the potential to deliver cellulosic gasoline and diesel to the U.S. We are proud to be making history in Mississippi. The technology is simply scalable and we believe sufficient excess feedstock exists in the Southeast alone to build almost 50 KiOR commercial-scale facilities.”

The company plans to build a similar but larger facility in Natchez, Miss., scaled to process three times the woody biomass as the Columbus biorefinery.