The next several weeks could be a busy time for the Department of Energy’s procurement in the weapons complex.
The long-awaited draft request for proposals (RFP) for the potential 10-year, $21.5-billion operations contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina was issued last week and anyone interested in participating in next week’s virtual pre-solicitation meetings should register by 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday.
The draft RFP virtual meetings kick off May 11. The deadline for interested parties to submit questions and comments on the draft RFP is May 28. The incumbent, Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, has been on the job since August 2008 under a contract currently valued at $15.8 billion. The current contract period is set to expire Sept. 30, but DOE can extend the incumbent another year through September 2022. Given that it is already May, an extension could be likely.
In addition, DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in Cincinnati has said that final requests for proposals for two new contracts at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico should come out either this month or in June.
The current contract to operate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is held by Nuclear Waste Partnership, an Amentum-BWXT team, under a $2.7-billion contract scheduled to run through September. Meanwhile, the existing contract to haul transuranic waste from DOE sites to the underground salt mine disposal site is held by CAST Specialty Transportation, which has a $112-million contract that extends through May 2022.
In addition, the DOE contractor community continues to watch for issuance of the new cleanup contract for the Idaho National Laboratory. The final request for proposals was issued a year ago this month. The new long-term contract will replace both the $2.2-billion core cleanup contract held by Fluor Idaho and the $53-million contract held by Spectra Tech to manage certain spent fuel licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Both contracts have been in place for more than five years and are slated to expire Sept. 30.
