The Department of Energy in the fourth quarter of 2017 exercised an option worth more than $490 million on BWX Technologies’ (BWXT) naval nuclear propulsion parts production contract, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company announced nearly four months into 2018.
“A variety of manufacturing and material procurement activities will be performed under these contracts that will primarily support Virginia-class submarine construction,” the company said Monday in a press release.
BWXT’s Nuclear Operations Group has long been the sole provider of nuclear naval reactors to the U.S. government, most recently under a pair of contracts awarded in 2016 by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and worth a combined $3 billion or so.
The option the NNSA picked up late last year was part of a contract for reactor components. The company said it is already carrying out work under the option, and expects further naval nuclear reactor parts contracts and options in coming months.
The other 2016 vintage contract, awarded to BWXT subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services, is for the manufacture of fuel for naval reactors.
Aside from the naval reactor work, BWXT is mostly a supporting player on the NNSA stage, with a teammate-level presence at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. The company has also indicated it might be part of a bid to grab the follow-on Los Alamos management contract due to be awarded in April or May.
Like much of the rest of the NNSA, the Donald Trump administration wants to increase the budget for the naval reactor program. The NNSA is seeking about $1.8 billion for its naval reactors program in fiscal 2019: roughly a 25-percent increase relative to the 2017 appropriation that has essentially carried into 2018 under a series of stopgap budgets.
