Tank the defense: expanding the NATO pipeline strategy to the east flank

NATO is entering a crucial phase of strengthening the possible for deterrence and defence. In view of Ukraine's war and Russia's long-term threat, allies decided at the fresh Hague Summit to rise defence spending in the 2035 perspective. This is intended to let for the acquisition of fresh capabilities and increase the number of armed forces of individual states for the Alliance's regional defence plans. Collective defence operations will require immense amounts of fuel and warrant effective supplies and retention on the east flank. The safest method of transport tested in many NATO countries is to transport them with underground fuels. In peacetime, alongside armed forces, this infrastructure provides supplies to civilian aviation. In a war situation, however, he goes full into military service, mainly for the benefit of the air force, but besides of the ground troops.

For many years, Poland and Romania have been primarily seeking to make the fuel strategy of the Alliance. Building the essential infrastructure on the east flank and its integration with the NATO network already in operation will be a major organisational and investment challenge. Not only will it let fuel safety in the course of any war, but it will besides open up fresh commercial supply options. However, for any Central European countries (including Poland), launching them would require the creation of additional civilian request in air navigation, facilitating the provision of marketplace backing for Maintenance fuel trains and warehouses in peacetime. Despite the energy transition, NATO's armed forces will proceed to trust primarily on conventional liquid fuels, gradually expanding the usage of synthetic fuels that can besides be transferred by NG.

Eastern flank: military fuel demand

Ensuring continuous supply of fuels is essential to maintaining the operational capacity of the armed forces. In NATO's military doctrine, supremacy in the air is crucial. Hence, the estimated share of air force in fuel consumption in the war script is as much as 85% of full demand. The ground troops will receive 10% and the Navy will receive 5%. Currently, the supply of fuel to the armed forces of the east states, NATO flanks are mainly carried out utilizing railway and road tanks, utilizing existing civilian infrastructure. Due to the limited and predictable request for peace, mainly related to training, current needs are easy met.

However, in the event of an armed conflict with Russia, the existing ways of supplying fuel will become far insufficient. The biggest problems will be the proliferation of fuel request throughout the theatre as a consequence of the displacement of land and air formations from Western Europe and the United States into the east flank and the improbable strength of activities in different operating directions, which has a local impact on the fast growth and decline in fuel consumption.

In the case of a combined allied operation on the east flank, fuel consumption will most likely exceed the supply capacity of the existing infrastructure even before the armed escalation, due to the fact that already during the coalition forces come together. This increase in request will be generated by both land traffic and air transport, as well as air safety operations. It is so crucial not only to attach the east flank to the Natovian fuel system, but besides to have extensive, resistant warehouses. Supplying the full Central European theatre of activities only with rail and road tanks could lead to a deficit in the short term, and it would negatively affect the capacity of roads and railway lines (the road and rail network will be burdened by another logistical tasks of the time of war). In addition, fuel transport with tankers is much easier to track, which gives emergence to the hazard of revealing the concentration site of troops.

Tankers play a key and irreplaceable function in the tactical dimension, i.e. direct supply of fuel to individual vehicles and aircraft (in the immediate front). utilizing them in an operational dimension, i.e. to transport large amounts of fuel from warehouses to a fighting formation, is nevertheless suboptimal and highly inefficient in strategical terms. Especially since regular 1 armored brigade may request more than 300 000 litres of fuel in maneuvering operations^[1], and respective twelve specified brigades can operate on the theatre.

NATO Central European Fuel Pipeline strategy – CEPS

NATO's fuel strategy is an underground pipeline system. Built during the Cold War, the NATO Pipeline strategy (NPS) consists of 9 buses, over 10,000 km and connecting 12 countries. These are 2 global pipeline systems – Central European CEPS (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Germany) and North European NEPS (Denmark, Germany). These are complemented by 7 national pipelines: Icelandic (ICPS), Norwegian (NOPS), Portuguese (POPS), North Italian (NIPS), Greek (GRPS) and 2 Turkish (TUPS) – Western and Eastern. In addition to the pipeline network, connected to ports and refineries, NPS creates fuel and lubricant retention facilities (more than 4 million m)³), pump stations and loading points for wheel and rail transport, ensuring further distribution. The NPS is supervised by the NATO Fuel Committee (until 2008 under the name of the Pipeline Committee).

Map. Central European and North European NATO Pipeline strategy (CEPS and NEPS)

Source: Service ist unser Geschäft. Raffiniert transportiert, garantiert, Fernleitungs-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH, 2023, unserebroschuere.de, p. 6.

The NPS core is the Central European NATO Pipeline strategy (CEPS). The network has about 5.3 1000 km of pipes with a diameter of 102–305 mm, leading to civilian airports and air force bases in France, Benelux and Germany – which were created during the Cold War (in 1958) in case of clash with the Warsaw Pact. The easternmost points of CEPS are Neuburg in Bavaria (South Germany) and Bramsche in Lower Saxony (northwest Germany). Danish-German NEPS reaches Hohn in Schleswig-Holstein. CEPS transports 12 million ml of fuels per year – air, diesel, petrol and kerosene – for military and civilian sectors. This pipeline is simply a rigid structure, i.e. allows to send a pressed product to 1 recipient^[2].

Table. CEPS elements

Source: own development.

Militaryly the largest user of CEPS is the United States (mainly the US Air Force), which delivers aviation fuel to its bases in Rhineland-Palatinate (Ramstein and Spangdahl). Therefore, unlike the UK and Canada, which withdrew from CEPS, the US stay a associate in the program. The national CEPS sections are besides liable for a large part of the fuel supply to host states' armed forces (e.g. in France for 50%). After the Cold War, CEPS was utilized to conduct NATO operations outside the treaty area. The strategy provided aviation fuel for machines active in Allied Force operations (Jugoslavia, 1999), Unified Protector (Libya, 2011) or ISAF (Afghanistan, 2001–2014). In the case of ISAF, it was refueled for flight 1726 aircraft C-17 and C-5. In the days of expeditions, military fuel transmission via CEPS exceeded 1.5 million sqm per year (i.e. 12.5% capacity). At a later time, which did not bring major operations, it was twice as small^[3]. CEPS is besides utilized during allied military exercises.

After the end of the Cold War, CEPS was restructured with the simplification of the US military presence in Europe and the shrinking of the European allies' armed forces, which translated into decreasing request for fuel. In search of savings, part of pipelines and fuel retention were abandoned, placing more emphasis on civilian applications. Collective defence went to the background, and the Alliance promoted investments in mobile fuel supply systems geared towards expeditionary operations. As a result, there was no interest in the usage of fixed product infrastructure for the armed forces. The CEPS programme was even considered to expire and the pipeline network was transferred to civilian management. This process continued until 2014, with the UK's decision to privatise part of its NPS (GPSS) which was sold to Spanish operator Exolum in 2015.

In fresh years, the safety of critical CEPS components has been strengthened. Among another things, they invested in power generators that can keep the strategy for 30 days. Kicked into the ground to a depth of approx. 80 cm, the product pipeline is fundamentally an easy-to-repair infrastructure – there are reserves of pipes and engineering teams that are able to reconstruct the functioning of CEPS within 72 hours. However, the mancament is essential to clean the tanks and to full pump the pipes in order to change the air fuel to diesel or synthetic. Switching networks to another fuel can so take time.

All NATO pipeline networks but CEPS are controlled by the host countries. The Central European strategy is managed by the CEPS Board, which includes representatives of six participants (France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and the USA). The Management Board shall meet at least 3 times a year and shall take decisions on a consensus basis. The current administration is handled by the Programme Office in Versailles (supervised by NATO Support and Procurement Agency, NSPA). It interacts with the host country organisations mentioned in the table above liable for the individual sections^[4]. The operating costs of CEPS (about €180 million per year) are shared between the participants of the programme, but most of them – almost 90% – cover revenues from transmission and retention charges by business customers, i.e. airlines (via CEPS can be shipped many products, but warehouses are only adapted to aviation fuel).

...and its east European enlargement – EEPS

The second life of the Nattian pipeline network was given by Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2014. From the discussion on the appropriateness of maintaining CEPS, allies gradually moved on to planning the construction of an east European pipeline product system, which, after being connected to Central European, would safe the supply of fuel to the east flank of NATO. In fresh years, the Alliance has been conducting an interior analysis of fuel transportation capacity in various operational directions, as after the Cold War, its members have limited their logistical capacity in this area in both rail and wheeled transport (no tanks and warehouses) and maritime transport, and a crucial part of logistics support has been brought to the private sector. It is so not amazing that the analysis showed crucial shortages in the supply of fuels to the east flank in the conflict with Russia script and the request to take action to improve the situation. The request for the essential pipeline investments was reported by the Chief Commander of the NATO Joint Forces in Europe (SACEUR). In April 2021, a survey on the construction of the east European Pipeline strategy (EEPS) was ready. The task was subsequently consulted at military levels (NATO operational commanders who defined their fuel demand) and political (individual capitals proposed solutions to increase supply).

Although the planning of the EEPS takes into account in peculiar the request to defend the collective time of war, the military – especially the air and land components – will benefit from it in peacetime. The current fuel request of the east flanking forces will increase^[5], as well as – most likely – training activity and the scale of NATO and US forces exercises in the region^[6]. In addition, Poland plays a key function in providing military aid to Ukraine, including fuel for the military. During peace, the advantage of the pipeline network is lower transport costs, and during war – more security, as pipes and tanks are underground.

Two variants of Poland's integration into the NPS strategy were considered in NATO: straight from northern Germany (connection with Danish-German NEPS) and by the Czech Republic (connection with CEPS). Both routes were not excluded. The German Defence Ministry estimates the cost of building 1 kilometer of the product line at EUR 1 million. The full investment, i.e. the creation of an east European pipeline strategy with the accompanying infrastructure, would amount to around EUR 21 billion in the time frame of 20-25 years.^[7].

It is worth noting that the supply of fuels is simply a comprehensive strategy of connected vessels, which does not consist solely of pipelines. This is why allied EEPS planning besides takes into account another forms of fuel transport (rail-road), e.g. in the Baltic States which do not have a combat component of the air force and where there is insufficient request for pipeline solutions in civilian aviation. EEPS is to cover all east flank countries – even in the absence of a pipeline, fuel retention and additional infrastructure will be created in any countries. Romania and Bulgaria would be merged with the Greek strategy (signed a tripartite letter of intent in 2023).^[8]), and Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – with CEPS. The EEPS programme has undergone an advanced phase of detailed analysis of the plan sheets and it seems possible that the construction of this network will be approved later this year.

Civil usage and business calculation

Armed forces stay a tiny fuel consumer in peace compared to the private sector. On a regular basis, CEPS is mainly utilized for commercial transportation for civilian aviation (Jet A-1). For example, in the French section, transmission for civilian purposes accounts for 85% of its total^[9]. This model promotes the maintenance of the strategy in good condition and, thanks to the charges charged, reduces the expenditure associated with its operation and maintenance. In Germany, marketplace contracts let up to 70% of the yearly operating costs of CEPS^[10]. Through CEPS, the airports in Brussels, Liège, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Cologne/Bonn and Frankfurt am Main are served directly.^[11]. The Dutch CEPS section sends more than 4.5 million million kerosene per year, of which the Amsterdam-Schiphol airport receives about 40%^[12]. For CEPS airlines, it is simply a long-term logistics solution, as it besides allows the transmission of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which has a good chance of becoming the future of decarbonised civilian aviation. The first specified deliveries to Brussels airport Zaventem took place in 2023. In host countries CEPS is liable for about 30% of the full fuel distribution. It is worth noting that in the event of a crisis or war, supplies to the military take precedence over those implemented for the civilian sector.

In Poland, the dominant entity in the marketplace for transport and retention of oil and oil products is the State Treasury-owned company PERN. It has the top experience in creating oil infrastructure in the country and participates in discussions on the expansion of the Natovian pipeline strategy for the needs of the Polish Republic. PERN declares its willingness to engage in the task as an operator and investment coordinator erstwhile the applicable decisions are made in NATO and the time needed for the construction of NPS fuel infrastructure in Poland is estimated to be six years (certain elements can arise faster)^[13]. Depending on the model developed for financing the task and the degree of commitment of the State budget, the company could participate in at least part of the costs of implementation and operation. However, it would surely be crucial to find external funds.

Poland and the countries of the region – from Estonia to Bulgaria – search NATO's approval to co-finance investment from the Alliance's common budget (in 2025 it amounts to EUR 4.6 billion, including over 1.7 billion for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Investment Programme in the field of safety – NSIP). As it seems, it would besides be possible to rise funds for NPS elements from the EU budget (as an expenditure on critical energy infrastructure to support military mobility), even more so as the product could be adapted to the transmission of low-carbon synthetic fuels. A way is besides sought to at least partially cover the costs of its operation during peacetime by civilian entities (as in the case of CEPS).

In Poland, civilian airports, but besides the air force supplies fuel primarily to the Orlen group. In 2024, Jet air fuel consumption was 1.45 million m³ and was 9% higher than in the erstwhile year^[14]. 97% were covered by home production. In 2024 it reached 1.67 million m³ and was 12% higher than the year before^[15]. advanced self-sufficiency and the anticipation of raising home production propose that it would be essential to make additional request in the territory of the Republic of Poland to justify the commercial usage of NG in the construction of fresh civilian airports. In addition to investment decisions of this kind (e.g. construction of the Central Communication Port), this would besides require coordination of military planning with the civilian sector.

In the current situation, while the request for aviation fuel in Poland does not increase, at least 2 scenarios can be realised. Firstly, the full operating costs of the fresh fuel strategy could be taken over by the State, which would entail a permanent additional financial burden. Alternatively, the Natov pipelines could start supplying fuel to the Polish market, thus competing with the current dominant supplier – Orlen. Secondly, following the decarbonisation process in the EU (regulations adopted under the Fit for 55 package), the usage of low- and zero-emission fuels in aviation will increase. In line with the objectives of the EU ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation as early as 2025, the share of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at EU airports should be 2% and 6% in 2030.^[16]. In Poland, the sole maker of SAF is Orlen, who is expected to launch a line of hydrogenation of vegetable oils in Płock this year and supply sustainable aviation fuel PLL LOT^[17]. Orlen together with national partners and withaborder works on improving the production process. SAF is already produced in Western Europe and transmits via NPS. According to available data, in 2024 it accounted for 5% of all fuel transported by these pipelines, and this share continues to increase. Thus, it may be possible that, especially in the case of delays and/or tiny scale production of synthetic fuels in Poland, the Natowski strategy could service at least to any degree for the civilian supply of SAF to our marketplace and contribute to the acceleration of decarbonisation of air transport. The option of alternate supply and increased competition on the marketplace could reduce the hazard of excessive price increases for end-users.

Alternatively, 1 of the entry points to the strategy could be placed in the territory of the Republic of Poland and connected to the refineries of Orlen. The construction of trains and their operation in peace would then be an opportunity, in parallel to home supply, to scope the outlets in the NPS co-founding countries, generating additional revenue.

Challenges related to the construction and maintenance of EEPS

1. Co-financing with NATO. Major infrastructure projects of general importance financed by NATO joint funds require the unanimous approval of the North Atlantic Council. any allies are skeptical about putting them on. It considers that specified investments should be included in the individual objectives of the associate States in the Natatian Defence Planning Process (NDPP), which is financed entirely from national budgets. Furthermore, co-financing NPS on the east flank is not among the priorities of allies from the south of the continent, and Donald Trump's administration reluctantly refers to expanding the budgets of global organizations. In the US NSIP programme, they are the largest net contributor – in 2023 they received little than EUR 60 million from the strategy with a payment of 206 million.^[18]. The NPS expansion plans are besides not supported by the possible of reducing the US military presence in Europe.

2. Polish-Czech-German cooperation. In the absence of co-financing by NATO, the construction of a fuel strategy on the east flank could be located – as a strategical investment – in the centre of trilateral cooperation between Warsaw, Berlin and Prague. In the Czech Republic, the pipeline infrastructure is well developed, so its integration with the network in Germany and Poland should not be a problem. For Germany, the extension of NPS to the east is beneficial in 2 ways – it would strengthen the efficiency of the supply of fuels to the east states and, in the long term, towards Lithuania, where the German brigade has been stationed since 2027. There is simply a hazard on the part of the RFN that it is possible to rise the argument that the construction of this kind of infrastructure is incompatible with the 1990 Treaty 2+4 restrictions between the national Republic of Germany, the GDR, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the USSR, beginning a notabene way to unification of Germany.^[19].

3. Implementation. The EEPS task will require a long-term commitment and determination of individual countries, close civil-military cooperation and global coordination. Its implementation will take at least a twelve years. It will besides be necessary, as in the case of CEPS, to make a mechanics for managing and administering the network at transnational level (Council, Office). The challenges, as in all specified investments, will be environmental approvals and land acquisition.

4. Energy transformation. In a changed safety situation following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a smaller obstacle to the implementation of the task appears to be the NATO-based lobby for reducing the emanation of armed forces, especially as NPS can be presented as a focus on sustainable fuels and a solution more ecological than road transport. The energy transition towards low-carbonity present has small bearing on the military sphere. The military will be subject to decarbonisation processes much slower and in a different way than the civilian sector. Although NATO's armed forces are investing in renewable energy sources for military infrastructure or electrical vehicles today, liquid fuels will stay crucial for activities in the air, land and sea domains (at least in the foreseeable future). However, the usage of these synthetic fuels will gradually increase at the expense of conventional fuels (air forces of parts of NATO countries are already filling semi-synthetic mixtures), e.g. based on methanol. However, to importantly increase their function the challenges will be their inactive advanced price, lower energy efficiency and the request to adapt equipment (engines, tanks), infrastructure and supply logistics.

At the same time, the European Green Deal introduced in the EU will affect the functioning of allied troops. In particular, the accelerating electrification of civilian transport will reduce the request for conventional fuels, which may reduce the profitability of at least parts of refineries in Europe and consequence in a simplification in their number. As a result, an crucial process, outside NATO's competence, will be to keep the essential level of production, inter alia for military needs. This will require expanding the production of unconventional fuels, including, for example, by adapting refineries to this end.