The Department of Energy said this week the solicitation for a new five-year, $100-million transportation contract for its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico should be released in the next 25-to-60 days.
As a result, the final request for proposals (RFP) for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Transportation Services Procurement should be out by June 18. The timeline notice was posted Monday on a federal procurement website.
In February, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said the RFP could be out as early as May. Earlier this month, the nuclear cleanup office said the big multibillion-dollar operations contract for WIPP, now held by an Amentum-BWX Technologies partnership, might also be released in June.
CAST Specialty Transportation currently has a five-year transport contract that runs through May 27, 2022. Although the current deal has a maximum value of $112 million, only roughly a quarter of that has been paid out so far, DOE said in a March 30 pre-solicitation briefing for prospective bidders. The online session attracted 27 people representing 16 organizations, including the incumbent.
The new contract, for hauling transuranic waste from DOE-approved generator sites across the country to the underground salt mine near Carlsbad, N.M., will be a small business set-aside like the existing one.
