The company that has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory for a decade will split up, with members of the incumbent manager set to pursue separate bids to run the nuclear weapons lab for the next 10 years, a University of California official said Wednesday.
The University of California (UC) managed the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) on its own for most of the New Mexico site’s nearly 75-year history. Since 2006, the university has partnered with senior industry partner Bechtel National and industry teammates AECOM and BWX Technologies as site prime Los Alamos National Security.
Now, according to a University of California regent, that partnership will split up, with some of the incumbent’s industry teammates pursuing other proposals to run LANL.
“We now find ourselves in a situation where there will be bids coming from some of our partners,” Norman Pattiz, the UC regent who chairs the board’s national laboratories subcommittee, said Wednesday.
Pattiz spoke during a Board of Regents meeting that was webcast from San Diego. During the meeting, the board officially and unanimously approved the university’s plan to bid on the next LANL management contract.
One of the industry teammates on the incumbent said it is interested in the follow-on contract, but stopped short of confirming it was either leading or participating in a bid.
“BWXT remains extremely proud of our service to Los Alamos National Laboratory over the last 12 years and is interested in the operations and management contract at LANL,” Kenneth Camplin, new president of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Services Group, wrote in a statement emailed Thursday to Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Bechtel National, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on its plans.
“Out of respect for the NNSA acquisition process, our teammates at Los Alamos, and the laboratory workforce, we won’t be commenting at this time,” a Bechtel spokesperson said by email Thursday. “Our focus is on managing and operating the lab.”
Ronald “Keith” Wood, a spokesperson for AECOM, did not reply to several requests for comment this week.
The next LANL management pact includes a five-year base and five one-year options. The lab-management portion of the deal, which represents the lion’s share of the work, would cost more than $20 billion, according to the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees LANL. About $10 billion of that would be guaranteed money in the base period. The winning bidder could pull in up to $50 million in annual fees.
The University of California signaled it would bid well before DOE released a request for proposals from would-be LANL managers on Oct. 25. But its entry into the competition was not official before the regents’ approval on Wednesday. Bids are due Dec. 11.
While it is best known for the nuclear weapons work that accounts for the vast bulk of its annual spending, the 11,200-employee, 40-square-mile facility today conducts research into fields ranging from nanotechnology to biosurveillance.
“NNSA is a tough, demanding customer, but the work to be done at Los Alamos is too important for the university to walk away from,” Pattiz said Wednesday.
Besides the University of California, the University of Texas and Texas A&M University have signaled interest in the management pact. The University of Texas is leading a bid; it is not clear whether its in-state rival, A&M, is heading up its own bid or joining another.
Honeywell International, fresh off contract wins for the NNSA’s Nevada National Security Site and other DOE facilities, has said it would not compete for the Los Alamos contract.
