The Defense Energy Support Center

Whether it is emptying a gas can into a Humvee on a dusty trail in Afghanistan or pumping fuel into a C-17 cargo plane, the American military runs on energy. The Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) is the U.S. Military's gas station.

With headquarters in Houston, Texas, the DESC maintains two regional locations in the United States, three in Europe, four in the Pacific and one in the Middle East. Its complex mission is to provide petroleum products to Department of Defense customers and select others, as well as to provide other energy resources such as rocket fuels and base utilities.

May 10-12, 2010 are the dates for the 2010 Worldwide Energy Conference, which is being held in National Harbor, Maryland. This year's conference focuses on alternative fuels and renewable energy (AFRE). Other conference topics cover the gamut of activities that DESC is involved in. A large trade show allows the conference attendees to see the latest in products, assisting them to meet mission goals and energy mandates.

Several officials from DESC granted me an interview at the beginning of the conference. The work of the Center can be stated fairly simply. A military organization provides the specifications for its need to the Center. The Center takes bids from suppliers, arranges a contract and ensures that the purchase is delivered to the military organization.

It sounds simple, until you realize that these military organizations span the globe, and are sometimes located in areas where combat is taking place. Delivery can be as great an issue as the actual purchase itself.

In the United States, most fuel purchases as civilians know them, gasoline and diesel, are made close to the receiving organization. Gasoline for Fort Irwin is bought in California. Many of the fuels for ships and aircraft are milspec, or refined to a military specification. Those are purchased in the same manner although suppliers are not as local as with civilian fuels. The contracts are variably priced with an index but the price charged the customer is not. Overages are absorbed by a Capital Fund as are any profits realized.

The Center has become involved with providing electricity and natural gas to military bases and locations in the United States. It is not part of their mandate but their expertise in purchasing energy gives them an advantage over each base contracting on its own. With deregulation, both electricity and natural gas can be purchased on the open market. The DESC usually contracts for a variable price structure, via an index. The base pays the local utility for delivery and the DESC for the energy itself. It is just what many civilian homeowners do with their electric and natural gas bills, where their supplier and their delivery source are different.

The DESC produces a Factbook each year. The 2009 version was updated April 29, 2010 and may be found at this link in pdf format. The Center purchased over 21 million barrels of gasoline and diesel in 2009, and 90,000 barrels of gasohol. 179 terminal operations are funded by the DESC worldwide. $380 million was spent on over 37,000 shipments, nearly 151 million barrels. Costs for shipping in and outside the U.S. were nearly equal though 2/3 of the materials were shipped within the U.S.

The largest supplier is BP, with contracts totaling over $2.2 billion and just over 11% of the total contract dollars. Shell, Bahrain Petroleum, Kuwait Petroleum and International Oil Trading make up the remainder of the top five suppliers by purchase dollars.

The Factbook also shows the coal purchases made by DESC. Over 716 thousand tons of coal were bought in 2009 for one civilian and 10 military customers.

The Center is managing over 129 million dekatherms of natural gas for customers in 38 states and the District of Columbia. They have over 200 DoD and Federal civilian customers. They also manage over 15.7 million megawatt hours of electricity.

The DESC is part of the Federal Government's program to increase the use of renewable / green energy sources. The Air Force recently flew an A-10 using a mix of jet fuel and biomass derived from a plant called camelina and the Navy flew an F-18 with a similar fuel mix. The DESC was responsible for obtaining that fuel.