Europe risks running short of jet fuel in a major war, NATO study says
BRUSSELS — NATO forces could face jet fuel shortages in a future war as Europe’s transition away from fossil fuels and shrinking oil refining capacity create dangerous vulnerabilities, a new study warns.
The NATO-backed study, released in September, found that if a major conflict involving its European members and North American reinforcements occurs in the coming decade, the fuel needs of alliance aircraft could overwhelm available supplies.
The warnings come as Russian hybrid warfare and sabotage campaigns in recent months have caused renewed anxieties of a direct conflict with Moscow. But just as multibillion euro defense budgets across the bloc are spent on aircraft, tanks, missiles and drones, the researchers say fuel constraints could be what hampers any future resistance.
“From a military readiness perspective, access to fuel … matters greatly,” a senior NATO military official said. “NATO needs reliable energy supplies to deter and defend, and sometimes those collective defense needs mean the military has to take priority.”
The NATO researchers partly blamed the fuel shortfalls on the decarbonization policies of EU and allied countries, which have created market incentives for renewable energy and spurred the closure of the oil refineries the military relies on for stockpiling — leaving NATO Europe “short on diesel and jet” fuels, they said.
“The report’s been circulated at quite a high level within NATO and across the alliance,” said a spokesperson for the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, which produced the research. “The urgency of this report and the modeling within it ... is undoubtedly motivated by the current geopolitical landscape.”
FuelsEurope and European Commission data shows that roughly a quarter of the continent’s oil refineries have shut down since 2009, wiping out millions of barrels per day of regional capacity and leaving Europe with around 70 operational plants capable of supplying domestic jet fuel.
What NATO can do to increase its refinery capacity is “a good question” that remains unanswered, a senior European security official said, adding it was “not a reason to abandon the green transition.”
The new study also coincides with a Brussels-led effort to boost the bloc’s refining capacity, which has declined by 10% over the past 20 years, with ramifications for defense, as EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen warned in public remarks last month.
The study reflects the independent findings of the NATO center rather than official alliance policy. However, the center operates as a key research hub on energy security. Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, it provides strategic and operational data to alliance members.
“The system finds its limits in what we have modelled as a full-scale conflict in NATO Europe triggered by Article 5 with significant North American deployment,” the researchers wrote. “In the reasonable worst case ... no quantity of civil restrictions balances the system from the mid-2030s without intervention.”
Article 5 is NATO’s collective defense pact, and states an attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against all.
But even commandeering all available civilian jet fuel in the coming decade would not be enough, the study found.
“From 2035, complete requisition of civil supply still leaves 4.7 Mt of jet unmet,” the researchers wrote, “rising as high as 50 Mt by 2050.”
But the researchers argue that the crisis is avoidable and requires that NATO make urgent changes. They recommend that allied governments preserve refining capacity, expand strategic fuel reserves, accelerate production of alternative aviation fuels, diversify imports and maximize military fuel consumption through greater efficiencies.
“The good thing about the energy transition from a defense fuel security perspective is that the roll-out of alternative fuels within Europe provides what we call supply additionality,” said the center’s spokesperson, who backed the bloc’s attempts to become energy self-sufficient. “So it is a new form of supply to the market which can be homegrown so it can avoid that reliance on international crude supply chains.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed the report’s fears on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, admitting the alliance is worried about its lack of refineries in the event of a war with Russia.
