Nuclear Waste Partnership’s current eight-year, $2.4-billion contract for management and operation of the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is being extended for at least one more year, potentially two.
The DOE and Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership agreed Sept. 15 to a one-year option through Sept. 30, 2021, contractor spokesman Donavan Mager said in a Monday email. The agreement also authorizes two additional six-month option periods where the agency could keep the prime contractor around through September 2022.
By then, the DOE should have secured a new follow-on contract for operation of the disposal facility for defense-related transuranic waste.
The one year extension is worth $269 million, bringing the total contract value to over $2.7 billion, according to a DOE press release.
In July, the DOE Office of Environmental Management issued a sources sought notice and request for information for vendors interested in running the underground disposal site.
Without an extension, Nuclear Waste Partnership’s current agreement would have expired last Wednesday.
Nuclear Waste Partnership consists of Amentum and BWX Technologies, and Orano is a major subcontractor for the joint venture. The prime contractor has been on the job at WIPP since October 2012.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management retained Nuclear Waste Partnership in September 2017 at the end of the five-year base period for the current contract, picking up the sole option on the pact: a three-year extension.
A rupture of a radioactive waste drum in February 2014 contaminated a portion of the WIPP underground and forced the facility to suspend disposal for about three years.
Article modified Oct. 6 to correct estimated value of the one-year option period.
