Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
6/12/2015
A fee-related provision that has raised industry concern in the draft Request for Proposals for the new contract to operate the Department of Energy’s two depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plants has been taken “out of context,” a DOE procurement official said this week. At issue is a clause in the draft RFP that would give the DOE Fee Determining Official “sole discretion” to determine if the new DUF6 contractor’s performance has been unacceptable, allowing the official to reduce fee or withhold all fee for an evaluation period. However, DOE Office of Environmental Management Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Project Management Jack Surash said at a business forum this week that the current public version of the draft RFP does not fully reflect the planned fee structure for the new contract. “So please wait until you see the updated section B and read the words that are currently disturbing some people, and if there are still questions after that please let the [contracting officer] know directly, and you can let me know too,” Surash said. “I know this is the issue, but it’s out of context at the moment.”
A final RFP for the DUF6 procurement is expected to be released within the next 15 to 45 days, DOE said in a notice issued this week. DOE also said that it expects to award the new contract “in or about” the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2016. The Department is currently accepting industry comment on updated sections of the draft RFP for the new contract (Sections B, H, L and M) through June 15.
Industry Official: Provision ‘Heavy Handed’
One industry official last week described the provision as “heavy handed,” and warned that it could put too much risk burden on contractors. “Obviously, there has been a trend within some DOE circles to minimize the overall contractor fee potential, but the revised fee language in the DUF6 Updated Draft RFP is even more worrisome,” the industry official said in a written response. “While we certainly agree that contractor performance should impact fee potential, the idea that the FDO may (at his/her sole discretion) withhold the entire performance fee for unacceptable performance based on a subjective evaluation, awards undue control on the FDO, and places the contractor in a tenuous position.”
The two DUF6 conversion plants, located at DOE’s Portsmouth and Paducah sites, are currently managed by B&W Conversion Services, LLC, under a contract set to expire at the start of 2016. The plants are intended to help disposition more than 700,000 metric tons of material stored in thousands of cylinders at the two sites. The new contract will have cost-plus-award-fee contract line item numbers (CLINs) to cover conversion operations; and firm fixed-price CLINs to cover cylinder management activities.
