11 December 2011
U.S. Pays $400 a Gallon for Gasoline in Afghanistan

Over the past six years of war, the expense of delivering fuel to America’s fighting machine in remote parts of Afghanistan has increased 50-fold.

It now costs on average of $400 a gallon to keep planes, tanks and other fuel-dependent machinery moving.

Captain Zack Albaugh, a California Air National Guard pilot who helps fly gasoline to rural bases, explained to The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Air Force has to “burn a lot of gas to drop a lot of gas.”
The expense of trekking fuel to parts of Afghanistan has prompted the Department of Defense to consider alternative methods of energizing the armed forces, including the use of solar power, wind turbines and biofuels.

The sheer volume of air-dropped cargo is swiftly rising. In 2005, Air Force planes dropped around two million pounds of supplies to troops in Afghanistan. Last year, they delivered around 60 million pounds by airdrop. By the end of this year, officials say, they expect to drop around 90 million pounds of food, water, ammunition and fuel to bases in the country.
Air Force Gen. Raymond Johns, who heads the service's Air Mobility Command, said the December 2009 surge in U.S. troops has made resupply more challenging, particularly because of the threat of roadside bombs.
“They [troops] are in places where getting them their supplies is very risky to go by land conveyance,” he said. “So they've become more and more dependent on our airdrop.”
This particular launch was successful: a total of 36 bundles reached the drop zone.
But two parachutes did not fully open, and pallets stacked with barrels of fuel slammed into the ground, lost or badly damaged—“burned in,” as crews say.
“That's the cost of doing business,” said Lt. Col. Bill Willson, the squadron's commander.
A single airdrop represents the tail end of a complex supply chain. The U.S. military has multiple routes to keep supplies delivered to landlocked Afghanistan, and had been working to reduce dependence on supply routes that go through Pakistan before last month border closing.
Besides air drops and Pakistani delivery routes, the U.S. military can transport cargo overland through a road and rail network called the Northern Distribution Network, which brings non-lethal supplies in through Central Asia.
But some supplies—certain kinds of weaponry or other sensitive cargo—must be moved by air.
And that means Air Force planes will keep burning more fuel, and their crews will keep flying long hours.
“If you want us to drop something on a postage stamp, by God we'll do it,” said Maj. Richard Carter, a C-17 pilot, on a recent cargo flight to Afghanistan. “But there's only so many crews.”