As expected, the Department of Energy has signed a potential five-year, multibillion-dollar extension with the Fluor-led management and operations manager for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the company said late Thursday.
The extension could keep Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on as the prime contractor through September 2027 and be worth $12 billion over five years, Fluor said in a Thursday press release. The deal is a four-year extension with a DOE option for an additional year.
Fluor will book its four-year, $4.5 billion portion in the third quarter, the company said in its release. Other members of the SRNS team are Newport News Nuclear and Honeywell International.
Prime contractor SRNS has overseen Savannah River since August 2008 under an agreement valued at $17.8 billion. Earlier this year, DOE signaled its intention to keep SRNS on site manager for up to an additional five years.
Work under the contract includes everything from managing non-liquid-waste environmental cleanup to nuclear weapons and nuclear non-proliferation missions for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. That agency also passes construction money for its proposed plutonium pit factory at Savannah River through the prime contract.
A DOE boss telegraphed the extension Monday while speaking to members of the site’s federally chartered advisory board.
“A new contract should be signed sometime this week because Sept. 30 is approaching fast,” said Jimmy “Mac” McMillian, DOE Savannah River assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship, told the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board. Friday Sept. 30 marks the expiration of the prior extension with SRNS.
On the heels of that move, DOE also intends to extend the site’s security contract with Centerra Group for up to two years, McMillian said.
Centerra’s current contract, which began in October 2009 and is valued at more than $1 billion, would expire Oct. 7 without an extension, according to an agency’s website. In a notice published in July, DOE said it planned to extend Centerra until Oct. 7, 2024.
The DOE initially awarded a 10-year, $1-billion award to a joint venture led by Securitas CIS in February 2021. But following a pair of contract challenges filed by Centerra, DOE has said “corrective action,” is being taken, and McMillian said that process is still ongoing.
In November 2021 the DOE indefinitely suspended a request for proposals for a new operations contract at Savannah River Site until the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration decide which entity will control the federal complex in the future. Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White said last week to expect more details within the next three months.
