The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to address a perceived conflict of interest, raised by a Bechtel National-led team, about the agency’s November award of a potentially decade-long sites-management contract to a Fluor-led team, according to a letter from the Government Accountability Office.
On Friday, at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) request, a source said, the Government Accountability Office dismissed protests filed by the Bechtel-led Integrated Mission Delivery and the BWX Technologies-led Strategic Nuclear Operators. Both companies bid and lost on a contract to manage the NNSA’s major nuclear-weapons production sites.
Then, in December, both teams protested the NNSA’s decision to award the Fluor-Amentum team of Nuclear Production One a potentially 10-year, $28-billion contract to manage the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Nuclear Production One was scheduled to take over the sites on April 1 from the incumbent Bechtel National-led team, Consolidated Nuclear Security. Pantex is where the NNSA services nuclear weapons. Y-12 is where the agency produces nuclear-weapon secondary stages and processes uranium for nuclear-powered Navy warships and submarines.
