The chase to run the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina after 2018 is unofficially on after the agency on Monday released a request for information that will shape a procurement of a follow-on deal to the facility’s current $9.5-billion management and operations contract.
The management and operations contract awarded in 2008 to the Fluor-Honeywell-Newport News Nuclear trifecta called Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is set to expire on July 31, 2018.
According to a draft scope of work appended to the request for information, the eventual management and operations contractor will:
- Run the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs at SRS, including tritium processing.
- Continue dilution of weapon-usable plutonium in the site’s K-Area facility for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
- Operate and maintain the site’s F Area (excluding F Tank Farm), the H Canyon Complex, K Area, and L Area to support storage and disposition of nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel.
- Run solid-waste disposal programs at the site, including transuranic waste disposal.
- Manage the Savannah River National Laboratory, which is among other things the Energy Department’s main nuclear-cleanup technology development hub.
For the follow-on, DOE is keeping the door open for a small business-led prime contractor, exploring “whether all or a portion of the requirement can be set-aside for small businesses,” the agency wrote in the new request for information. Those replying will have to present relevant experience from the past five years, according to the request.
Prospective bidders for the practically inevitable solicitation to follow now have a week to mull over this first tip of DOE’s hand before the agency invites the competitors-to-be to South Carolina for an industry day on Oct. 24 and one-on-one meetings with agency officials from Oct. 24-26. The events are all scheduled to be held at the Doubletree Augusta Hilton Hotel in Augusta, Ga.
Those interested in attending the industry day and one-on-one meetings should send a registration request by Oct. 20 to [email protected], the agency stated on its procurement website.
DOE has not yet said when it will release the draft solicitation for the next Savannah River Site management and operations contract.
The Savannah River Site management and operations contract does not include the major liquid-waste cleanup efforts now handled by an AECOM-led conglomerate, Savannah River Remediation, under a $4 billion contract set to expire June 30, 2017. AECOM, BWX Technologies, and Fluor are all said to be in the hunt for the estimated $4 billion to $6 billion follow-on, for which DOE solicited bids this summer.
Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story incorrectly said the next management and operations contractor would be responsible for Savannah River Site’s tank farms. The story now correctly reflects that the management and operations contractor will be responsible for nuclear materials management in F, K, and L Areas and the H Canyon Complex but not the F Tank Farm.
