The National Nuclear Security Administration planned to award its next big facilities operations contract in December 2025, a Department of Energy official told the Government Accountability Office in a letter dated December 20.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday published the letter to Allison Bawden, director of the office’s Natural Resources and Environment team, from Ingrid Kolb, director of the DOE’s Office of Management. The missive was appended to a broader GAO report about DOE contracting, titled Department of Energy Contracting Additional Actions Could Further Strengthen Competition.
In its response to GAO’s report, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said that “award of the next NNSA facility operations contract [is] currently estimated for December 2025.” NNSA’s response was part of an enclosure appended to Kolb’s letter.
Asked to clarify its award schedule for the years ahead, an NNSA spokesperson on Tuesday evening said that “NNSA anticipates awarding M&O [management and operations] contracts for Pantex in 2024 and Y-12 in 2025.”
The NNSA is splitting up management of the Pantex Plant and Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which are currently managed by the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security under a contract that began in 2014.
In December, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said that the agency planned in 2023 to start competition for a standalone contract to manage Pantex. A competition for a standalone Y-12 contract would begin in 2024, Hruby said at the time.
The NNSA currently holds options to keep Consolidated Nuclear Security at Pantex through fiscal year 2025 and at Y-12 through fiscal year 2027. Government fiscal years begin on Oct. 1. Pantex is the NNSA’s nuclear-weapons service center and Y-12 is the production hub for the uranium-fuel secondary stages of nuclear weapons.
