Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, comprised of Jacobs, Fluor, and BWX Technologies, got off to a “satisfactory” start in its first year as cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, earning 60 percent of its potential fee, according to a recent scorecard.
The DOE’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office (PPPO) this week rolled out fee scorecards for four vendors that did work during fiscal 2018 at former gaseous diffusion plants in Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., along with the office’s headquarters office in Lexington, Ky.
Fluor‐BWXT Portsmouth received 72 percent of its fee for decontamination and decommissioning at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Mid-America Conversion Services took home 67 percent of its fee for running depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities at both DOE sites. Finally, RSI EnTech kept 97 percent of its maximum fee for technical services at Portsmouth.
Four Rivers
Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership earned $5.7 million of its potential $9.5 million fee during fiscal 2018. It was the first DOE scorecard since the team won the potential 10-year, $1.5 billion remediation contract in mid-2017, succeeding Fluor Federal Services at Paducah.
The contractor took home 37 percent, or $778,000 of a potential $2.1 million, in subjective award fee. It scored “satisfactory” on five of six ratings standards and “good” on the other – implementation of business systems. It was deemed satisfactory in the areas of quality, schedule, cost control, management, and regulatory compliance. On quality, “overall, the minimal requirements of the contract were met,” according to the Energy Department.
Four Rivers did better on performance-based incentives award fee, taking home 67 percent of the total, or almost $5 million of a potential $7.3 million. The contractor met or partially met 19 of 21 performance milestones. One of the key milestones was complete shutdown and de-energizing of two electric switchyards and support facilities that powered the gaseous diffusion plant at Paducah until operations stopped in 2013.
Fluor-BWXT
Fluor-BWXT earned $17 million of a potential $24 million in fees for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2018. The 72 percent of potential fee is in the ballpark of the 74 percent Fluor-BWXT earned for a 16-month period ended Sept. 30, 2017, when the contractor earned $24.3 million of a potential $33 million.
This time around, it earned 66 percent, more than $11.2 million of nearly $17 million, of its potential performance-based initiatives fee. It also received 84 percent, or $6.1 million of a potential $7.25 million, in the subjective award fee, according to the DOE scorecard.
Fluor-BWXT fully or partially met eight of the nine performance-based incentive targets. It failed to get the X-326 building to the “cold and dark and ready for demo” status by the end of fiscal 2018. The 1950s-era structure enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
The contractor, however, met its construction goals for the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility. Construction of the cell is running under budget and ahead of schedule, DOE said without offering specific figures. The company was also credited with helping to attain various regulatory approvals for the disposal cell, a $900 million facility at Portsmouth, expected open in 2022. During fiscal 2018, Fluor-BWXT also helped DOE turn over 80 acres of federal land to the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) for potential economic development.
Last fall, the Energy Department exercised the final 30-month option period on the 10-year, $3.4 billion Fluor-BWXT contract, keeping the contractor on the job until March 2021.
Mid-America Conversion
Mid-America Conservation Services, a team comprised of SNC-Lavalin’s Atkins unit, Westinghouse, and Fluor, earned $2.5 million of a potential $3.76 million in potential fee for converting DUF6 into to a more stable uranium oxide form. That is better than MCS did during eight months in fiscal 2017 when it earned 48 percent or $1.1 million of $2.3 million in award fees. Fiscal 2018 marked the first full year of the MCS contract, which began in February 2017.
During this latest scorecard period, Mid-America earned roughly 87 percent of its subjective award fee, or just over $1 million of almost $1.2 million available. It was deemed “excellent” in two categories – management and utilization of small business – and rated “very good” in four others – quality, schedule, cost control, and regulatory compliance.
In performance-based incentives, the vendor earned almost $1.5 million of a potential $2.6 million. “MCS was effective in getting lines repaired and restarted at both sites coming out of the two planned plant-wide outages” at Portsmouth and Paducah, the Energy Department said.
RSI EnTech
The Tennessee-based company got about $415,000 of a potential $427,000 for providing technical services. It was rated “excellent” in three quality and effectiveness categories – managing the program, performing project support, and environmental safety and health quality assurance. It was “very good” in the quality of its administrative support, the department said.
“RSI has provided excellent support throughout the fiscal year and has met contract requirements and exceeded almost all of the performance goals and objectives for the period,” DOE said in the scorecard.
The report lauds RSI EnTech for everything from helping prepare regulatory filings to developing presentations for the Site-Specific Advisory Board at Portsmouth. It was another stellar report for the vendor, which also kept 97 percent of the potential fee for fiscal 2017.
Nevertheless, RSI EnTech’s continued work at Portsmouth is not assured.
The Energy Department is seeking a single consolidated contract for technical support across the PPPO. In June 2008, DOE awarded a five-year, $137 million contract to Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) subsidiary Enterprise Technical Assistance Services. But following a bid protest by New Mexico-based Strategic Management Solutions, DOE essentially withdrew the award with the intention to revisit it. Since then, RSI has been issued a six-month extension to its $51 million Portsmouth contract, keeping it on the job through March.
Similar extensions have been issued for Pro2Serve at Paducah and Strategic Management at PPPO headquarters.
