US Military Pays $400 A Gallon For Fuel In Afghanistan

Think last summer's $4 a gallon prices at the pump were painful? Imagine being the US Military, which pays around $400 a gallon in Afghanistan according to the Pentagon comptroller's office in a report to the House Appropriations Defense panel.

The report from the Pentagon comptroller was requested as a part of Obama administration's reconsideration of Afghanistan strategy. The price comes as a result of an investigation into why it costs approximately $1 billion a day to send every 1,000 troops into Afghanistan.

Now, there's a lot baked into that $400 a gallon price. Consider that in addition to the basic extraction and refinement costs of normal military fuel, priced at $2.78, it has to be sourced from secure facilities with high security to prevent sabotage, it must be transported across the regions difficult terrain and to remote locations using overland or air transit, and it must be guarded from attack at all times. It's also a variable price, and is not standard for all regions of Afghanistan, some areas are cheaper, and believe it or not, some are even more expensive, ranging up to $1,000 a gallon. Still, the $400 price is nothing short of breathtaking. To put things in even more sobering terms, the report goes on to state the Marines alone, in one day in Afghanistan, consume an average of 800,000 gallons of fuel. [The Hill]

Photo Credit: LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images

Send an email to Ben, the author of this post, at ben@jalopnik.com.

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