Staying at sea for longer periods allows warships to continue their main mission and thus supply and replenishment becomes a vital part of maritime security.

In the spirit of encouraging ongoing cooperation between international partners and to support enduring counter-piracy operations in the region, US tanker USNS Bighorn has conducted a Replenishment At Sea (RAS) with EU NAVFOR Spanish warship ESPS Meteoro.

ESPS Meteoro continues to have a busy deployment for Op Atalanta, covering many miles of patrols off the Somali coast during counter-piracy operations. To keep her supplied the RAS is the most efficient way of fuelling warships and removes the need to enter a port in order to take on fuel, increasing endurance of the ship and allows her to continue operations.

ESPS Meteoro has been part of Operation Atalanta since 21^st April 2018, conducting counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and assisting international merchant ships as they transit the important sea-lanes around the Horn of Africa. She was refuelled with 197,000 litres of fuel, which equates to nearly 2500 bathtubs.

This RAS shows that working together and the sharing of resources between maritime military partners and EU NAVFOR is supporting the mandate to deter, prevent and repress piracy, allowing the free flow of international maritime trade.