Fluor Federal Services will build a nuclear weapons storage and maintenance facility at the Frances E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyo., under a three-and-a-quarter-year U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract announced this week and worth $145 million.
The 90,000-square-foot facility will include a fueling station, a generator building, and a fire pump building, Fluor said in a press release. The Army Corps estimated the project would cost between $80 million and $100 million, according to documents posted online.
Warren Air Force Base is one of three installations where the United States maintains underground silos filled with Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped mostly with W78 warheads made by the Department of Energy.
The Army Corps of Engineers did not post the solicitation for the contract online or say how many responsive proposals it received, but it took Fluor more than a year to move in on the contract and outmaneuver any competition it found.
Competition for the pact began officially in May 2017, public procurement notices say. Presolicitation fact finding began in June 2016.
According to estimates compiled by the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists, the U.S. fields 400 land-based ballistic missiles across three missile bases, including Warren.
With this construction contract, Fluor’s star rises a little higher in the nuke world.
The Federal Services unit, led by former National Nuclear Security Administration chief Thomas D’Agostino, secured a place at the Los Alamos National Laboratory earlier this year as a high-profile, integrated subcontractor for management contractor Triad National Security.
Triad, a nonprofit partnership, took over the main U.S. weapons lab on Nov. 1 from the for-profit Los Alamos National Security: a partnership in which Fluor rival Bechtel National had a leading role.
