Fuel

Fuel is a collectible resource introduced in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

About
Fuel is a resource that was introduced in Mercenaries 2. Fuel is necessary for the mercenary to call in Ewan to deliver supplies, or Misha or anyone else for air strikes. Just like money, there is a limit to how much fuel you can store, which can be expanded by buying upgrades from factions after completing outpost capture contracts.

Acquirement
Fuel is not awarded by completing missions like money (except the "Phone Tag" contract); instead the player will have to acquire it manually. This is mostly done by having Ewan pick up fuel tanks by helicopter which can be found at various locations and bases in Venezuela, similar to airstrike ammunition.

One should note, however, that taking a fuel tank from a friendly base will cause the local NPCs to become hostile. Each fuel tank flown away by Ewan will grant the player five hundred gallons of fuel. Combined with the fact that fuel tanks are quite common to find, players rarely find themselves low on fuel. Also whenever a vehicle is destroyed, they will drop a small fuel container worth twenty five gallons of fuel. The most rare fuel container to be found are the large fuel trailers that can occasionally be found at petrol stations or outposts and refineries owned by Universal Petroleum which are worth five thousand gallons of fuel but cannot be tagged for pickup (can be winched).

If the player does ever find their self in dire need of fuel, the best places to look are outposts owned by any of the factions, these outposts are guaranteed to have at least one fuel tank, also if the player is at sea at the time, look for UP Cargo ships, which always have at least three five hundred gallon tanks of fuel on board.

Tips
Being a common and volatile find in Mercenaries 2, one may often find no need to request Ewan to pick up the fuel tanks. This is often an excellent opportunity to utilize fuel tanks in conjunction with the winches of helicopters as an improvised bomb. Fuel tanks will make a devastating explosion if fired upon or dropped from great distances that will often severely damage or destroy most buildings and vehicles. This is a great way to start an attack via a vehicle disguise, or even maintain a vehicle disguise by dropping the tanks on top of the target. It also makes the player able to destroy stationary targets in an ammo-depleted or unarmed helicopter.

To take Fuel from a Friendly Faction, make sure to stand right at the entrance to the outpost shop. Where just as the Fuel is taken away walk into the shop, which will prevent the Faction from becoming hostile

Another trick to take fuel from a friendly faction is to use a helicopter with decent lift capacity (Castro transports are the earliest types) winch the fuel a small distance away then extract it, the faction will not become hostile unless the fuel pickup by Ewan is done near them.

It should be noted that line of sight does not count as out of faction range, make sure there is distance between the faction and the fuel being stolen.

Trivia

 * There are some guerrillas guarding Chinese marked Oil tanks in Amazonas. Stealing them will not make the PLAV hostile.