Incumbent Centerra Group has been awarded a new Security Services contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The award, announced in a Thursday press release, is not a surprise. The DOE has been saying for many months it plans “corrective action” to its earlier award that went to a rival bidder.
Centerra has been protecting people, special nuclear material and facilities at the complex near the Georgia state line since Oct. 8, 2009. The current contract has been extended many times and is currently valued at $1.6 billion.
When DOE extended Centerra in October, it did so in the form of up to six four-month option periods with the first one expiring Feb. 7, a DOE spokesperson said Thursday by email. “DOE will exercise additional option periods as necessary,” the spokesperson said in response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry.
“Through a healthy and rigorous competition EM [Environmental Management] determined the Centerra proposal provided the best value to the government,” the DOE cleanup office said in the Thursday press release. Centerra was chosen from three proposals, according to the release.
Almost two years ago, however, it appeared Centerra’s days as Savannah River security provider were ending.
In February 2021, the DOE Office of Environmental Management announced a contract award to SRS Critical Infrastructure Security, a team led by Securitas CIS. The following June the DOE stressed that it would stick with the new awardee. But by September 2021, Centerra formally withdrew a bid protest after DOE agreed to take corrective action on the award.
Following a five-year base period for the new contract, which includes a 60-day transition, DOE could exercise two more option periods totaling five years on the cost-plus-award-fee contract.
With the Centerra award, both the existing security provider as well as the management contractor Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, will remain in place after the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration takes over the site from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. That governmental handover is planned for 2025.
