ARLINGTON, Va. — The head of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hazarded an educated guess here Wednesday that the Department of Energy will soon extend his team’s contract to manage the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
After a one-year, $1-billion extension awarded in 2018 by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, SRNS is slated to manage the site through July 31. Savannah River has a massive Cold War weapons cleanup mission, along with a smaller active nuclear weapons mission.
The Energy Department released a draft solicitation for a successor Savannah River contract in August, pegging the value of the deal at $15 billion over 10 years, with options. However, the agency put the procurement on hold while DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration and the Environmental Management office started a debate about active nuclear-weapons missions at the site. The NNSA broached the issue of taking over or leaving the site after a federal court in South Carolina temporarily frustrated the agency’s effort to cancel the site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The NNSA did cancel that facility in October.
Now, with no final solicitation on the street and spring just around the corner, “I think that there’s going to be a time frame that they’re [DOE] going to have to do kind of a continuation,” Stuart MacVean, SRNS president and CEO, told reporters here Wednesday on the sidelines of the ExchangeMonitor’sannual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is a partnership of Fluor, Honeywell, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear. The company manages some 5,300 employees who conduct nearly all aspects of site operations, minus security, liquid waste work for the Environmental Management office, and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The SRNS pact includes: some solid waste cleanup, building deactivation and decommissioning; tritium processing for the NNSA’s nuclear weapons; and operation of the Savannah River National Laboratory.
SRNS’ initial 10-year contract, awarded in 2008, was worth $9.5 billion.
