A company that set out 11 years ago to test whether it could make fuel oil from algae in Hawaii announced Friday that it is ceasing research work after succeeding, and will try to build a commercial production plant in the islands.

Cellana Inc. said it has agreed to sell its 6-acre research facility on Hawaii island to Cyanotech Corp., a local company that produces microalgae for nutritional products at an adjacent 90-acre facility on a state technology park campus in Kailua-Kona.

A sale price was not disclosed.

As part of the move, Cellana, which is based in San Diego and Hawaii, will lay off all of its 15 employees and focus on trying to develop a larger plant for commercial-scale production.

Martin Sabarsky, Cellana CEO, said it didn’t make sense to keep the research and development operation going because the company achieved results with oil yields high enough to make commercial production profitable.

“We’re done with the R&D phase,” he said. “That was the whole point of the facility. We’re ready to commercialize.”

Cellana reported spending an average of about $2 million annually on research and development over the past seven years. Since it was established, the company said it has spent more than $100 million on work financed in part with federal government grants and private investment.

The next goal for Cellana is to build a commercial facility on 54 acres in the same tech park, the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.

The company said on Friday that it has a rough nonbinding commitment from a lender to provide $27 million for that project, though more money would be needed for the facility that Sabarsky said is more than a year away from construction if financing can be obtained.

This is the second time the company has announced plans to move into commercial production. An initial attempt came relatively quickly after the company was founded but didn’t pan out.

Cellana was formed in 2007 as a joint venture between European oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Hawaii-based HR BioPetroleum Inc. to produce fuel oil from microalgae. The research and demonstration facility in Kona, which includes open seawater ponds to grow marine algae, helped test algae strains and production methods.

In 2008 the company announced a “memorandum of understanding” with Maui Electric Co. and local investment and development firm Alexander &Baldwin Inc. to develop a commercial algae facility on Maui to supply biofuel to help run an existing power plant for the utility.

But in 2011 Shell withdrew from the joint venture even though Cellana said it had all the permits needed to build the Maui plant.

In more recent years, in addition to fuel, Cellana has advanced research to produce animal feed, pigments, proteins and nutritional oils that the company now deems a success.