The Pentagon, which is processing bids on a new contract to provide more than $100 million worth of jet fuel each year to a key U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, will open bidding next month on an equally lucrative contract to deliver fuel to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, officials said this week. Both Bagram and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan are critical to the Afghanistan war effort, and both illustrate the logistics problems associated with fighting in that landlocked country. The proposed Bagram contract stipulates that the jet and diesel fuel to be supplied must be brought in via northern supply routes, like the fuel that goes to Manas. Though much of Bagram's fuel will still be trucked in from the south, the intent is to reduce dependence on that hazardous route, which is frequently the target of militant attacks. The northern routes, while safer, are far more circuitous, requiring fuel to be carried from refineries in Russia, Azerbaijan, Greece and other countries over and around the Caspian and Black seas and then overland to Bagram and Manas. The current contract for delivery of jet fuel to Bagram from the north has been held by Red Star Enterprises since 2007. The Manas supply has been handled since 2005 by Mina. The ownership of the two corporations has not been publicly disclosed, although they share offices in Gibraltar and London, as well as an operations director, Charles Squires, a former U.S. military attache in the Kyrgyz capital. The Manas contract has become controversial in strife-torn Kyrgyzstan, where the past two presidents have been overthrown in part because of allegations of family corruption related to fuel deliveries to the U.S. base. Recently, the new Kyrgyz government announced plans to create a national fuel company, stirring speculation that it wants to supply the base directly. Negotiations are under way between the Kyrgyz government and State Department officials and military officers from the base, according to government sources. As for the Bagram contract, Lt. Col. Elizabeth Robbins, a press officer at the Pentagon, said the new solicitation will be 'issued on a full and open competitive basis.' The current contract was associated with an unusual agreement that Red Star would build, own and operate a pipeline from storage fields it had established near the base to the base's perimeter, eliminating the need for its fuel trucks to enter the facility. Other potential bidders for the Bagram contract have complained that Red Star's pipeline gives it an advantage. But Robbins said in her statement Thursday that 'it is not our intent to eliminate either the pipeline or truck deliveries of northern-sourced product.' 