About 200 workers were recently laid off from the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, construction prime CB&I AREVA MOX Services said this week.
Gentry Brann, a spokeswoman for contractor parent CB&I, said the project employed about 2,200 workers at SRS before the recent layoffs. She did not say when the layoffs occurred, nor if additional reductions could be expected.
The layoffs were necessary due to needs at the site, according to Brann. “We continually review workforce needs based on the project execution plan and make adjustments as required,” she said. “These (employee) numbers change continually due to the ebb and flow of construction work.”
Brann referred additional questions on the project execution plan to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department that oversees the MOX project. The agency did not respond by deadline to questions on the plan.
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), which remains under construction, would convert 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under the terms of the 2000 U.S.-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement. CB&I AREVA believes the project is more than 70 percent complete, based on the remaining construction. But the Energy Department says construction is anywhere from 25 to 40 percent complete, based on the cost to complete the work.
When construction began in 2007, the life-cycle cost of the entire MOX project – which includes construction, plutonium conversion, and other factors – was $17 billion. The Energy Department believes that price tag now sits at $51 billion, including $5 billion already spent, due to escalating expenses as the project takes longer than anticipated to complete. Originally projected to wrap up in 2024, the federal government now believes the entire project won’t be completed until 2044.
CB&I disputes this figure. The company believes the life-cycle cost of the project is about $19 billion.
This is not the first round of layoffs at the MOX project. In August 2013, the contractor announced it had laid off 500 employees.
The federal government – both under President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump – has attempted to shutter MOX and move forward with an alternative plutonium disposal method known as downblending. Under that method, the plutonium would be diluted at SRS using inhibitor materials and shipped for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The Energy Department believes downblending would cost $17 billion, while CB&I says it would cost $20 billion.
