ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Energy Department will award hundreds of millions of dollars of work for continued operation of depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion (DUF6) plants at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio later this month, a senior DOE procurement official said here Wednesday.
“Somebody asked me yesterday if we’re going to announce the award at the conference,” Ralph Holland, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said here during a podium presentation at the 2016 National Cleanup Summit. “The answer is no. Sorry.”
The combination cost-plus-award-fee and firm-fixed-price contract will cover five years of work operating the Paducah and Portsmouth plants, which are converting some 740,000 metric tons of DUF6 produced during decades of uranium enrichment at now-shuttered DOE gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Portsmouth. The new DUF6 operations pact is valued at between $400 million and $600 million, DOE has said.
Incumbent BWXT Conversion Services’ current DUF6 contract is worth nearly $500 million. The incumbent’s parent company, BWX Technologies of Lynchburg, Va., confirmed it bid for the follow-on contract.
The life-cycle cost of the Paducah uranium cleanup program is roughly $4 billion, DOE estimates.
Other contract bids and awards are expected in the coming year across the DOE defense nuclear complex.
A multibillion-dollar contract for 10 years’ worth of liquid-waste cleanup work at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., could be awarded between January and March, Holland said.” Most of the partners in incumbent liquid-waste contractor Savannah River Remediation have indicated their interest in the work. Senior Savannah River Remediation partner AECOM confirmed its bid. The current Savannah River Remediation contract expires on June 30, 2017.
Meanwhile, between February and April, Holland said, DOE plans to award north of $600 million in uranium cleanup work that went out to bid in July. The contract covers eight years of deactivation and remediation of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, including a five-year base, a two-year option, and a one-year option. Incumbent Fluor Federal Services’ deal expires in July and is worth about $465 million.
Further west, the final solicitation for 10 years’ worth of legacy cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, valued at almost $2 billion, is expected this month, Holland said. An award would follow some time between April and June, Holland said. A draft solicitation released in May called for a five-year base period, one three-year option, and one two-year option.
Lastly, Holland said DOE had no news to share about its plans for a follow-on waste contract at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. “We’re still in the acquisition planning process,” he said. Washington River Protection Solutions’ waste storage tank operations contract expires on Sept. 30, 2018, including a two-year option DOE has yet to pick up.
