Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received $39.2 million, or 87 percent, of its annual award fee for fiscal 2016 from the Department of Energy – a total amount earned for both its Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions.
The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor could have earned up to $44.9 million. By comparison, SRNS earned 82 percent of the award fee for fiscal 2015. Contractors earn award fees each year by completing a task on time, or for implicit performance in areas of cost, schedule/timelines, and business relations, according to the Energy Department.
The department noted several “significant achievements” under the SRNS work scope on the contractor’s award fee determination scorecard for the period from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016. These included operating all units of H Canyon, the Savannah River Site’s nuclear materials separation facility, for the first time since 2011. For instance: SRNS announced in February that it was resuming a key step at H Canyon that involves uranium processing.
SRNS also received praise for the September start-up of a project to process 6 metric tons of nuclear weapons usable, non-pit plutonium. The project is expected to take several years, and DOE reported recently that it had processed 2 kilograms of material. The diluted plutonium will ultimately be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
The scorecard also notes the implementation of risk reduction initiatives required by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB). For example, DOE noted, radiological protection personnel continue to modify protective actions that help operations run more efficiently.
In addition, the department cited progress with the SRNS-led Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC) – a $50 million venture aimed at reducing the cost and time of nuclear waste cleanup. While DOE has been slow to answer questions about the venture, the department said on the scorecard that the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), which SRNS manages, “continues to work effectively with EM-HQ and DOE-SR to meet deadlines and make significant progress with the AMC.”
DOE noted two significant areas for improvement, including the implementation of contractor assurance systems (CAS), which are intended to ensure work is being conducted safely and in compliance with federal requirements. The Energy Department identified areas where CAS has improved, but wrote that “it is still immature and SRNS needs more time to implement” procedures. Specifically, the contractor must implement corrective actions in a timelier manner and do a better job of documenting its work.
In the second area for improvement, SRNS needs to do a better job of acquiring and managing subcontracts, and needs better communication with DOE counterparts, according to the scorecard.
SRNS President Stuart MacVean said the contractor appreciates DOE recognition of its improvements. “Those improvements resulted in a healthy culture of self-awareness, where employees recognize and resolve immediate and long-term issues,” MacVean said. Regarding opportunities for improvement, he added, “SRNS has placed increased emphasis on these items to improve performance, and new procedures for managing metrics have been adopted.”
SRNS is a partnership of Fluor, Honeywell, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear. Its missions at the Savannah River Site encompass cleanup, building deactivation and decommissioning, tritium production for nuclear weapons, and operation of the Savannah River National Laboratory. The current $9.5 billion M&O contract is scheduled to expire on July 31, 2018.
The contractor received $23.9 million of its Environmental Management available fee, 89 percent of the available fee of $26.8 million. It received $15.3 million of its NNSA fee, 84 percent of the total possible $18.1 million.
