# DLA Energy Commander visits Baltimore DFSP

/ Published May 25, 2017
FORT BELVOIR, Virginia, 
Defense Logistics Agency Energy Commander Air Force Brig. Gen. Martin Chapin visited the Defense Fuel Support Point Baltimore and the Vane Brothers Company as part of a familiarization tour of the DLA Energy Americas East supply chain May 22.

Strategic engagement with DLA Energy’s corporate partners and suppliers is an important element of the DLA Energy Commander’s focus.

“By visiting our corporate partners, we strengthen our business relationships,” Chapin said. “In time of stress, we know they will be there. We better understand one another.”

DLA Energy Americas East Commander Army Lt. Col. Christian Meisel accompanied Chapin on his tour of the NuStar terminal facility.

“What we are doing is showing the ground distribution of a DFSP,” said Meisel. “DFSP Baltimore is absolutely critical to Americas East’s distribution network in the Northeast.” 

The Baltimore NuStar terminal has 50 various-sized tanks storing crude oil and products such as asphalt, ultra-low sulfur diesel, bio-diesel, caustic soda, glacial acrylic acid, phosphoric acid and urea-ammonia-nitrogen, said DLA Energy Americas East Quality Assurance Representative George Tyras. Three of the tanks are dedicated to Jet A aviation fuel. 

“Jet A is shipped from a Houston, Texas refinery via the Colonial Pipeline to DFSP Baltimore for no-fee staging in three of the terminal tanks,” said Tyras. “DLA Energy only pays an amount for each gallon of the U.S. government-owned product that passes through the terminal as it comes from the Colonial pipeline and eventually onto a barge or tank truck to authorized customers.”

George Tyras, Glenn Tablan, and Jim Whittaker are the three DLA Energy Americas East quality assurance representatives assigned to DFSP Baltimore and work out of the Baltimore NuStar terminal facility.

QAR’s spend a lot of time ensuring processes to make sure that fuel is within specification when it gets to the warfighter, Tyras said.

“The Jet A fuel is shipped ‘neat’ meaning no additives have been added,” Meisel said. “The fuel is additized as it is loaded onto a barge or tank truck, or shipped neat via barge to one of the five DFSPs: Port Mahon, Delaware; Anacostia, Washington, D.C.; Jacksonville, Florida; New Haven, Connecticut;  and Portland, Maine.”

The next stop within the Baltimore port terminal was to maritime transportation provider Vane Brothers. In operation since 1898, the Vane Brothers Company operates the double-skin tank barges that can deliver 10,000 to 140,000 barrels of product along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

“Vane Brothers are the primary East Coast barge contractor,” Meisel said. “We use them to push product as far north as New Haven, Connecticut and Quincy, Massachusetts.”

According to a report commissioned by the U.S. National Waterways Foundation, barges are more fuel efficient than road or rail for cargo transport. Inland river barges can move a ton of cargo 647 miles with a single gallon of fuel, compared to only 477 miles per gallon for trains and 145 miles per gallon for trucks.

Chapin and Meisel toured the Vane Brothers Baltimore headquarters operations center where dispatchers and schedulers monitor the real time progress of the Vane Brothers fleet up and down the East Coast.

As part of the general’s familiarization tour of the DLA Energy Americas East supply chain, Chapin and Meisel will also visit DSFP Yorktown and Foster Fuels.