The Air Force bought 290,000 gallons of the synthetic fuel from Shell Houston, at a cost of $3.41 per gallon... A McChord spokeswoman said the cost of traditional jet fuel was about $2.31 a gallon this week
So Synthetic costs about $1.10 a gallon more, so there is no economic justification.
And the synfuel comes from a Muslim country, so there isn't any strategic benefit, either.
The fuel was produced at a Shell plant in Malaysia
The Shell plant in Malaysia has been operating for around 10+ years I think. Economics only work out when there is low-value, "stranded" natural gas that cannot be sent via pipeline for other industrial use. Even then, the economics are really driven by specialty products (e.g., high performance lubricants) and not fuel (diesel or jet). Other plants have been proposed in the Middle East (specifically Qatar) and Alaska (where natural gas that is a by-product from oil fields is currently re-injected into the ground).
I am guessing that some of the major oil companies (Shell included) are re-evaluating coal-based processes that exploit the same chemistry with crude oil at $80-100/bbl.