RHEIN-MAIN AIR BASE, Germany — As fuel operations draw down at Rhein-Main in preparation for the base’s closure this year, more gallons of gas are still being pumped there than at any other USAFE installation.

The operations tempo remains high even with three of the eight 2.3 million-gallon jet fuel tanks emptied and cleaned for the first phase of closing at the end of the year, said Master Sgt. Fredrick Miller, the quality assurance evaluator for liquid fuels and maintenance on Rhein-Main.

Miller led a tour of senior Air Force leadership Tuesday.

The tour included a walk-through of the operation center, where numbers are tracked; a briefing and demonstration on a fuel truck for transportation of fuel; the filtration and pumping rooms used to clean and move out the fuel; and a recently cleaned underground fuel tank located in a berm near the Frankfurt International Airport.

Since the beginning of the year, Rhein-Main has pumped an average of 7 million gallons of gas per month, said William Brusso, fuels manager.

At Ramstein, another U.S. Air Forces in Europe base where much of Rhein-Main’s operations are moving, just under 6 million gallons of gas are being pumped each month, according to base officials.

Col. Bradley Denison, the 469th Air Base Group commander, congratulated the fuel operations team for their work keeping aircraft in the air and preparing the base for closure.

“The mission continues,” Denison said during an inspection of one of the emptied underground tanks. “We have between 25 to 35 missions a day and we continue to support them even with some of the fuel tanks drained. We’re doing what we can to continue supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom until the end of the year.”

U.S. Air Force and German authorities signed an official agreement Dec. 23, 1999, to close and return the base to Germany by Dec. 31, 2005.