The Department of Energy on Thursday released the request for proposals for the Hanford Mission Essentials Services Contract. The award has a projected value of $4 billion to $6 billion over 10 years, including option periods.
The work is now performed at the Hanford Site in Washington state by Mission Support Alliance, owned by Leidos and Centerra Group. Its cost-plus-award-fee contract is valued at about $3.2 billion and expires on May 25, 2019.
The request for proposals is for primarily cost-plus-award-fee contract line items. It covers services across the Hanford Site, including security and emergency response, land management, information technology, management of the HAMMER training center, and utilities. Utility work includes maintaining infrastructure and performing upgrades for roads and services such as electric and water supply, plus building infrastructure that will be needed to support operation of the site’s Waste Treatment Plant.
The procurement includes a new scope of work not in the Mission Support Alliance contract: helping DOE solicit for and administer small business prime contracts.
Companies on the team that wins the award will be prohibited from performing work on other key contracts at the former plutonium production complex, including: central Hanford cleanup; management of the radioactive waste storage tank farm; the Waste Treatment Plant contract; occupational medicine; and the 222-S Analytical Laboratory. Similar conflict of interest restrictions also will apply to subcontractors performing some work under the contract, including safeguards and security, records management, emergency operations, and Hanford portfolio analysis.
The request for proposals calls for the winning contractor to subcontract at least 40 percent of the total award value, and at least 50 percent of the total subcontracted work must be performed by small businesses. The Energy Department had proposed in the draft request for proposals released in November that the contract require at least 25 percent of the total contract value be performed by small businesses.
The request for proposals changes the option periods proposed in the draft request, increasing Option Period One from two years to three years and decreasing Option Period Two from three years to two years.
Questions on the final RFP can be submitted through Oct. 11 to [email protected]. Submissions are due within 60 calendar days of Sept. 20, which is Nov. 19.
Leidos and Centerra both registered representatives for a presolicitation conference and site tour last December, along with a number of major contractors in the DOE complex: Parsons, BWX Technologies, Huntington Ingalls, Atkins, CH2M, Fluor, and AREVA (which subsequently was rebranded as Orano).
Some of those companies already have roles in current work at Hanford. For example: CH2M holds the plateau remediation contract, which is expected to be extended for up to a year beyond its expiration on Sept. 30. The next award is in the presolicitation phase and DOE has said a draft RFP could be issued this month.
