Fluor is looking for additional business opportunities within the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup complex, Chairman and CEO David Seaton said Tuesday.
“We are looking at the Hanford liquid waste contract that is coming up for rebid this year,” Seaton said during a regular quarterly earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts.
He did not elaborate on the topic, but Seaton appeared to be referring to the follow-on to Washington River Protection Solutions’ (WRPS) waste storage tank operations contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. WRPS is a partnership of AECOM and Atkins.
The incumbent’s 10-year, $7.1 billion contract is set to expire in September. The DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC) had made a new tank waste management contract at Hanford a short-term priority, although it has yet to issue a draft request for proposals.
In December, Fluor also sent representatives to a presoliciation conference for DOE’s draft request for proposals on the anticipated 10-year, $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract. Mission Support Alliance holds the current contract through May 25, 2019, for services encompassing security, emergency response, land management, infrastructure maintenance, and information technology.
“There are several things in the DOE world that we’re pursuing, there is some rebids that are going on, as well as some of the base operation contracts that are coming up,” Seaton added later in the conference call, also without elaborating.
Fluor leads Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the current management and operations prime for DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The incumbent’s contract ends July 31 and is worth about $9.5 billion, with options. Honeywell International and Stoller Newport News Nuclear are Fluor’s partners on the contract.
Fluor spokeswoman Annika Toenniessen said by email Wednesday the company could not comment on “specific pursuits.”
“We’re proud of our longstanding relationship with the DOE and we look forward to supporting its mission into the future,” she said.
Executives made no mention during the call of the failure of a Fluor-Westinghouse team to land the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site last October. A $4.7 billion contract was awarded to a joint venture of BWXT Technical Services Group, Bechtel National, and Honeywell International.
The Government Accountability Office recently denied a Fluor-Westinghouse protest to the contract award, even as it upheld a protest from another losing team comprised of AECOM and CH2M.
Fluor Sees Revenue Growth in 2017
Fluor took in $19.5 billion in revenue during 2017, a small step up from $19 billion recorded for 2016.
The company said in a press release it collected just over $5 billion in revenue for fourth-quarter 2017, an incremental increase from $4.99 billion in the same period of 2016.
Net earnings in 2017 landed at $191 million, or $1.36 per diluted share, when the impact of the U.S. tax reform legislation is included. The 2017 earnings were lower than the 2016 earnings of $281 million, or $2 per diluted share.
Fourth-quarter earnings numbers were also down on a year-over-year basis: $60 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, versus $70 million, or $0.51.
The company said its results were hurt by a $45 million after-tax charge connected with a power project and a “downstream” project, neither of which appeared to be identified in the news release.
Fluor’s government group, which includes its contracts with the DOE Office of Environmental Management, reported a net profit of $128 million, which was up 50 percent from $85 million reported one year ago. The government group’s revenue for 2017 was $3.2 billion, rising from $2.7 billion reported for 2016. New awards, however, dropped from $4.6 billion in 2016 to $2.6 billion in 2017, Fluor said.
During 2018, Fluor expects diluted earnings per share in a range between $3.10 and $3.50.
Fluor is a partner with BWX Technologies for decontamination and decommissioning at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, under a 10-year deal potentially worth more than $2.5 billion through 2021. In 2016, Fluor took over remediation at the Idaho Site under a five-year contract worth $1.4 billion.
