Bechtel National and Purdue University have teamed up on a bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory after incumbent Los Alamos National Security — a partnership that includes Bechtel — is off the job later this year, according to a pair of sources.
Bechtel has been the lead corporate partner on the incumbent since 2006. Los Alamos National Security is being replaced as the lab’s prime contractor after a series of nuclear safety lapses, including a waste-packaging error that lead to an underground radiation leak at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2014.
A spokesperson for Purdue would neither confirm nor deny the university’s involvement.
“As is Purdue’s usual practice, we do not comment on proposals that we may or may not have participated in or submitted,” the spokesperson said by email Thursday.
A Bechtel spokesperson on Thursday said the company “won’t be commenting at this time. Our focus is on managing and operating the lab.”
It is not clear whether other entities are part of the reported bid with Bechtel and Purdue.
The lab-management portion of the next Los Alamos contract is expected to cost more than $20 billion over 10 years, including options. The winner could get up to $50 million in annual lab-management fees. Bids were due Dec. 11, and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) expects to award the contract in April or May. The incumbent’s last day at the site is Sept. 30.
Bechtel National looms large across the DOE weapons complex. Within the NNSA alone, the company is the lead partner on Consolidated Nuclear Security: the prime contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. The former is the NNSA’s primary uranium refinery, the latter is the nation’s only facility for assembling, disassembling, and maintaining nuclear warheads. Bechtel is also a major partner on Lawrence Livermore National Security, which includes its LANS teammates and Battelle.
Purdue has angled for DOE lab business before. In 2016, the Indiana institution was part of a failed bid to run the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., as part of a team led by Lockheed Martin and including New Mexico State University and New Mexico Tech University.
Meanwhile, two other members of incumbent Los Alamos National Security have confirmed they are seeking roles on the follow-on contract: the University of California and BWX Technologies.
The University of California managed Los Alamos National Laboratory alone for most of the facility’s 70-plus year history. A university regent last week praised the school’s “clever” bid for the next contract. BWX Technologies has only been involved since the Los Alamos National Security era officially began in 2006. Beyond confirming its interest in remaining at Los Alamos, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company has declined to discuss the ongoing competition for the next lab contract.
Los Alamos National Security partner AECOM has officially declined to comment about the follow-on deal, but a source has said the company is not part of any bid. AECOM, once a ubiquitous presence across the weapons complex, is now gutting out something of a DOE contracting dry spell.
Other confirmed bidders for the next Los Alamos contact are:
- The University of Texas — The Austin, Texas-based university system is bidding with an industry partner or partners.
- Texas A&M University — Texas’ other big public university system is part of a bid, but specifics beyond that are unknown. Reported by one newspaper to be part of the University of California’s bid.
- The University of New Mexico — The Albuquerque-based system has confirmed its interest but not commented on its teaming arrangements.
Meanwhile, Honeywell has confirmed it is not bidding on the new contract. In 2016, a wholly owned Honeywell subsidiary nabbed the potentially 10-year Sandia management contract, and a Honeywell-led partnership in May 2017 secured a contract to manage the Nevada National Security Site for up to a decade. Honeywell is also the longtime manager of NNSA’s Kansas City National Security Complex in Missouri, most recently under a 10-year contract that would run out in 2025, if the agency exercises all options.
