BWX Technologies, parent of the outgoing incumbent on the Energy Department’s depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion contract, is considering whether to protest the award of a follow-on to an Atkins-led team that snatched the work away last week.
The contract covers work at DOE’s former gaseous diffusion plants near Paducah, Ky., and Piketon, Ohio. BWXT had previously stated its intention to bid on the new deal.
“BWXT is still in the process of reviewing the debriefing materials, and when that review is completed we will make any decisions about follow-up actions,” BWXT spokesman Jud Simmons wrote in a Wednesday email.
DOE announced Sept. 29 that Mid-America Conversion Services had won the five-year, $318 million contract. Fluor Corp. and Westinghouse are partners with Atkins on the deal. The contract value was conspicuously less than the $400 million to $600 million estimate the agency had provided publicly on multiple occasions. Simmons would not discuss the apparent surprise in the final contract’s ultimate value and declined comment on whether the winning offer appeared low.
Atkins declined to comment about its strategy for the cleanup, citing the ongoing transition of the work to Mid-America from BWXT Conversion Services.
Meanwhile, there are three other bidders at large, any of which could also lodge a protest with the Government Accountability Office. Typically, companies passed over for an award have 10 days to protest, once they are debriefed by an agency’s selection officials.
DUF6 conversion began in July 2010 at Portsmouth and is expected to conclude around 2032. Paducah operations started in February 2011 and are slated to finish in 2044. Annual DUF6 processing capacity tops out at 13,500 metric tons a year at Portsmouth, and at 18,000 metric tons a year at Paducah. The material is a byproduct of Cold War-era uranium enrichment. DOE plans to convert close to 800,000 metric tons of DUF6 through 2032, for reuse or disposal.
BWXT Conversion Services’ existing DUF6 contract, which began in 2011, is worth roughly $530 million and runs through January. That includes a four-month, $35.8 million extension DOE announced last week, around the same time it announced the winner of the follow-on contract. AECOM is BWXT’s junior partner on the current contract.
