The More Oil Costs, The More The USAF Would Save Over Airbus
Offering
As the US military expresses concern over escalating fuel costs
stressing defense budgets, Boeing "reminded" officials this week
the US Air Force could pay as much as $44 billion more in fuel
bills over 40 years to operate a fleet of 179 Airbus A330-200
aerial refueling tankers, compared with a similar number of tankers
based on the Boeing 767-200ER.
This assessment is based the Conklin & de Decker Aviation
Information study,
conducted earlier this year and funded by
Boeing, that calculated the Air Force's cost with oil
at $130 per barrel, $150 per barrel and $200 per barrel. Oil prices
hit a record high last week above $147 a barrel, and many analysts
expect prices to continue climbing.
Escalating fuel costs are a critical military concern. As the
largest consumer of fuel in the Department of Defense (DOD), the
Air Force, for example, spends an additional $600 million annually
for each $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, spending
approximately $6.6 billion on aviation fuel costs in 2006
alone.
"Boeing's primary focus and objective, as always, is on our
customers' operational needs -- and affordable life cycle cost is a
key component to any aircraft acquisition," said Dave Bowman, vice
president and general manager of Boeing Tanker Programs. "This is
even more evident today as our Air Force customer seeks the most
affordable and capable solution."
Conklin & de Decker, an independent aviation research
company, recently recalculated fuel price costs for the Boeing
767-200ER and the Airbus A330-200, popular commercial twin-aisle
aircraft that are being converted to military aerial refueling
tankers. The larger, heavier A330 is less fuel-efficient than the
767-200ER and, as a result, consumes 24 percent more fuel per trip
than the 767-200ER. The study also factored in estimated costs of
refining, transportation, storage, handling and fueling the
aircraft.
On February 29 the Air Force selected Northrop Grumman-EADS to
build 179 next-generation tankers based on the A330. The DOD called for a recompetition
after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) urged the Air
Force to reexamine 10 of 15 significant issues in Boeing's protest
of the contract award. Among the sustained issues, the GAO
concluded that fuel costs needed reevaluation. The report stated
that "even a small increase in the amount of fuel that is burned
per hour by a particular aircraft would have a dramatic impact on
the overall fuel costs."
The Air Force is now preparing a new Request For Proposal for an
expedited competition.