Bechtel National will have a new project manager in place next month for the next-generation Uranium Processing Facility the company is building at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. However, it is not ready yet to identify the project chief.
Bechtel is moving current UPF project manager Valerie McCain across the country to Richland, Wash., where she will become project director for the Waste Treatment Plant under construction to process millions of gallons of radioactive waste stored at the DOE Hanford Site.
McCain’s replacement “will be the subject of a future announcement,” a Bechtel spokesperson said by email Monday. The new Y-12 project manager should be in place by mid-October, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, John Howanitz remains the UPF project director and senior vice president at Consolidated Nuclear Security: the Bechtel-led management and operations contractor at Y-12. Bechtel National is building the UPF as a subcontractor to the Consolidated Nuclear Security. Howanitz is also a Bechtel employee. While Bechtel is managing construction of the plant, the prime is ultimately accountable to DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration for finishing the job on time.
The facility will shape uranium into the shapes required for U.S. nuclear weapons and naval reactors. It will encompass three buildings that replace the Cold War-era Building 9212, which has processed uranium for defense programs since the 1950s.
The UPF fared well in the fiscal 2019 DOE budget bill President Donald Trump signed on Sept. 21. The project will receive a little more than $700 million for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1: roughly 5 percent more than the 2018 budget, and in line with the White House’s request. The budget increase corresponds with an expected ramp-up in construction at UPF’s Main Process Building: one of three primary structures at the facility, and the part of the complex that will host most of the hands-on uranium work. That is according to NNSA’s 2019 budget request.
The NNSA officially greenlit the start to the bulk of UPF construction on March 21. The facility is expected to cost $6.5 billion to build by the end of 2025.
The construction budget is expected to peak at $750 million in fiscal 2021, according to a five-year spending projection included with DOE’s 2019 budget request.
