ALEXANDRIA, VA. — The National Nuclear Security Administration could solicit bids for a new 10-year management contract for its uranium hub in Tennessee by spring of 2024, the head of the agency said here Tuesday.
“The notional schedule is Y-12 is one year behind Pantex,” Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said here at the Exchange Monitor’s annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
At the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge Tennessee, the NNSA makes the uranium-fueled secondary stages of nuclear weapons. The Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, is the NNSA service depot for all U.S. nuclear weapons, covering routine maintenance and major life-extension programs. The sites have been managed under one contract since 2014 but NNSA is ending that arrangement and putting both up for bid on separate contracts.
Pantex will be first. The NNSA’s request for information about the Pantex contract closed on Monday and the agency has said it plans to get a final solicitation out for bids by April and award a deal in 2024. If Y-12 can keep pace a year behind Pantex, the NNSA could have a new long-term contractor in place in Texas and bids in hand for Y-12 before the presidential elections in November.
If President Joe Biden (D) loses the election, the new president could purge agencies of their political leaders.
The Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) is the incumbent at both sites under a contract awarded in 2014. CNS is under contract at both Pantex and Y-12 through fiscal year 2024. The government holds options to keep CNS at Y-12 through fiscal year 2027 and at Pantex through fiscal year 2025.
The current NNSA leadership is in the middle of a major push for contracting and operations reform across the nuclear weapons enterprise, aiming to get as many sites under long-term contracts as possible.
“We are taking a close look at all the schedules and I mean honestly trying to accelerate,” Hruby said here Tuesday. “We’ve got a lot of contracts lined up in a row here.”
