The Department of Energy is giving bidders on the $2.9-billion Portsmouth / Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Operations and Site Mission Support contract until April 17 to tweak their proposals, sources tell Exchange Monitor.
The contract will mostly cover cleanup of Cold War-era uranium hexafluoride in Ohio and Kentucky, but it will also include production of depleted uranium tetrafluoride for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs, according to the final solicitation for the work. In its fiscal year 2025 budget request, the weapons agency said it had already acquired some high-purity depleted uranium for the weapons program from other sources.
April 17 is the deadline for the final proposal revision, which is part of an amendment to be attached to the final request for proposals, released nearly two years ago in May 2022, for the contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky, two industry sources said Monday.
The proposal revision from bidders would be good for up to 365 days. Sources told the publication last week DOE’s Office of Environmental Management sought the technical revisions within the past few weeks.
DOE recently published an online notice, saying it plans to extend the current DUF6 contractor for the former gaseous diffusion plants, Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services, another four months, through September of this year.
The changes involved in the final revision are technical in nature, the sources said.
For example, DOE is no longer seeking details on how contractors might handle canisters of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) coated with paint that contains PCBs, the sources said.
DOE declined comment Monday when asked about the final revised proposal.
This is not be the first time the agency has asked bidders to refresh their Portsmouth-Paducah contract proposals.
Teams said by industry sources to be in the hunt for the new contract include an Atkins-Westinghouse venture; a Bechtel-Amentum team; a Huntington Ingalls-Jacobs joint venture; and a BWXT-Honeywell team.
