The National Nuclear Security Administration has maxed out the options on Consolidated Nuclear Security’s short-term extension to run the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security complex, keeping the short-timer incumbent on the job through March while the agency finalizes the award of a follow-on deal.
With an expected four-month transition period to the next joint management contract for the two production sites, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency has left itself until the end of November to award the successor contract.
In the running are teams led by Bechtel National, Reston, Va., BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., and Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas. BWX Technologies has acknowledged publicly it is in on the deal. State and federal disclosures show Fluor has a 60% stake in a subsidiary called Nuclear Production One, and multiple sources have said that company and Bechtel are in the hunt.
In March, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded incumbent Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) a short-term extension: two months with four one-month options. The last of those options covers March. In 2020, the agency announced it would recompete the production site contract rather than keep CNS on the job, citing timecard violations and other management lapses.
BWX Technologies ran Pantex and Y-12 before CNS, Bechtel-led team with Leidos and Northrop Grumman took over in 2014, after a slog of a protest that followed the NNSA’s decision to combine the previously separate management and operations contracts for the two production sites.
CNS will remain at Y-12 to build the Uranium Processing Facility after the transition to the new NNSA Production Office contract. The incumbent contract was structured so that NNSA could split off UPF construction from the deal and tack it onto another award.
