Archive

Fluor

An engineering, procurement, and construction contractor with major roles in DOE weapons complex cleanup and national laboratory management.

  • Debriefings Due for Paducah Contract Runners-Up

    The Energy Department this week was to debrief the runners-up for the potentially 10-year, $1.5 billion contract won by a CH2M-led team for continued cleanup of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. DOE received four bids for the contract, which the agency announced May 26 went to Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership. The team also includes […]

  • Improperly Sealed TRU Waste From Idaho Shipped to WIPP

    Fluor Idaho sent an improperly sealed container of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant last month, but inspectors at that New Mexico disposal facility caught the mistake, according to a public notice from the Energy Department. The waste, shipped to WIPP May 10 in a TRUPACT-II container that can hold around 1.5 cubic […]

  • Cleanup Cash Boosts Government Unit’s Earnings at Fluor in 1Q

    Fluor Corp.’s government division got a boost from the company’s nuclear cleanup work at the Energy Department’s Idaho and Portsmouth sites in the first quarter, boosting earnings almost 70 percent to roughly $30 million on revenue of about $765 million: about a 10-percent year-over-year increase. The gains for government were “primarily due to increased contributions from […]

  • DOE Cuts Yearly Uranium Barter for Portsmouth Cleanup

    Beginning in May, the Energy Department will cut the amount of excess government uranium it will barter to help pay for Cold War cleanup at the Portsmouth site in Ohio, the agency said last week. Even so, there will be no layoffs at the facility near Piketon for at least the rest of fiscal 2017, […]

  • Portsmouth X-326 Deactivation Could Slip Into 2018

    Fluor-BWXT’s Portsmouth could wait until February 2018 to prep the X-326 uranium enrichment building for teardown, but only if it forgoes 30 percent of its award fee, according to a substantially modified contract the Energy Department released late Thursday. DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office uploaded the modified contract, last altered May 1, to its website in […]

  • GAO Critiques Energy Department Fraud Mitigation

    The Department of Energy has not used leading practices to manage the risk of fraud and other improper payments to its contractors and subcontractors, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday. The report found inconsistent review of invoices, too little data for oversight, and a lack of centralized and detailed policies. “Improper payments, […]

  • DOE Cuts Yearly Uranium Barter for Portsmouth Cleanup

    Beginning in May, the Energy Department will cut the amount of excess government uranium it will barter to help pay for Cold War cleanup at the Portsmouth site in Ohio, the agency said late Friday. Even so, there will be no layoffs at the facility near Piketon for at least the rest of fiscal 2017, DOE […]

  • Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, Pledges Continuity of Operations

    Westinghouse Electric Co., the U.S. nuclear arm of financially imploding Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday, raising questions about the storied company’s staying-power in the nuclear decommissioning business even as it pledged continuity of operations during the reorganization. “We are focused on developing a plan of reorganization to emerge from Chapter 11 […]

  • U.K. to Cancel Contract for Magnox Reactor Sites, Settle Lawsuits

    The United Kingdom on Monday announced the early termination of the 2014 contract for management and decommissioning of its 12 Magnox nuclear sites, and an over $120 million settlement with two companies that partnered on an unsuccessful bid for the work. The planned £6.1 billion ($7.7 billion) contract to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership will expire […]

  • DOE Weighing Long Delays for Portsmouth Demolition

    Cleanup of the former uranium enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, would slide into the 2030s under a new demolition plan DOE and site remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth are discussing internally. According to the plan obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor, the agency and Fluor-BWXT would delay demolition of Portsmouth’s three […]

  • DOE Discussing Near-Decade-Long Delay for Portsmouth Demolitions

    Cleanup of the former uranium enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, would slide into the 2030s under a new demolition plan DOE and site remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth are discussing internally. According to the plan obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the agency and Fluor-BWXT would delay demolition of Portsmouth’s […]

  • Ohio Lawmakers Invite Perry to Portsmouth

    Eight members of Ohio’s delegation to the House of Representatives on Monday urged new Energy Secretary Rick Perry  to visit the department’s uranium enrichment decommissioning project at Portsmouth. This is the latest of several invitations Perry has received from lawmakers to take an up close and personal view of DOE’s cleanup of its Cold War nuclear complex. […]

  • DOE Rethinking Market Effects of Uranium Barter at Portsmouth

    The Energy Department could soon revise an Obama administration decision that bartering government-owned uranium to pay for nuclear cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, does not harm the domestic uranium market, a March 9 regulatory filing shows. “The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is beginning the process to consider a new Secretarial Determination covering potential […]

  • Officials Await DOE Report on Future of AMWTP

    Idaho officials are open to the idea of lengthening the lifespan of the Energy Department’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project past 2018, but DOE has yet to release a report detailing what such an extension might look like. The facility, which employs about 700 workers, was built more than 15 years ago to treat and […]

  • Two Executives Exiting Fluor

    Fluor’s chief operating officer is retiring at the end of this month, followed by the company’s chief financial officer before the year is over, the Texas-based Department of Energy contractor announced Wednesday. COO Peter Oosterveer has been with Fluor for 28 years in a number of positions, including as head of the company’s energy and chemicals […]

  • Two Executives Exiting Fluor

    Fluor’s chief operating officer is retiring at the end of this month, followed by the company’s chief financial officer before the year is over, the Texas-based Department of Energy contractor announced Wednesday. COO Peter Oosterveer has been with Fluor for 28 years in a number of positions, including as head of the company’s energy and chemicals […]

  • COMMENTARY: Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Needs Third-Party Assessment

    By Billy Spencer, Mayor, Piketon, Ohio. Scioto County Commissioner Mike Crabtree is misinformed with respect to the Village of Piketon’s long-held position on the cleanup and redevelopment plan for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) and the need for a third-party independent assessment. He should also know that the Village of Piketon is not alone […]

  • Idaho AMWTP Employees Honored for Finishing Retrieval

    Officials and employees on Thursday celebrated retrieving all 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste that was buried under a dirt berm at the Department of Energy’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project in Idaho. Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden attended the event, which honored AMWTP personnel whose job for the past 14 years […]

  • Scioto County Official Blasts Piketon Mayor for Portsmouth ‘Dump’ Remark

    The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

  • Fluor Idaho to Test 11 Wells for Contamination

      Fluor Idaho officials will test 11 groundwater monitoring wells on the Idaho National Laboratory site this spring following the detection of the hazardous chemical tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, inside two of the wells last year. The PCE surprised state and federal officials when it showed up in concentrations well above safe drinking water levels during […]

  • DOE Plans to Start Calcine Retrieval in Idaho Soon

    The Energy Department will soon begin retrieving highly radioactive calcine waste stored for years at the Idaho National Laboratory. The initial phase of the retrieval project, expected to cost DOE close to $50 million and last through 2022, involves moving the powdered calcine waste out of the oldest No. 1 storage facility and into a […]

  • Scioto County Official Blasts Piketon Mayor for Portsmouth ‘Dump’ Remark

    The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

  • Fluor Idaho to Test 11 Wells for Contamination

    Fluor Idaho officials will test 11 groundwater monitoring wells on the Idaho National Laboratory site this spring following the detection of the hazardous chemical tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, inside two of the wells last year. The PCE surprised state and federal officials when it showed up in concentrations well above safe drinking water levels during a […]

  • Fluor a ‘Go-To’ Contractor for DOE, CEO Tells Investors

    Fluor Corp.’s work at Energy Department nuclear cleanup sites in Kentucky and Ohio has enhanced the company’s reputation at the agency, the construction giant’s chief executive told investors Friday. Remediation of former gaseous diffusion plants at DOE’s Paducah and Portsmouth facilities is “proving us to be one of the DOE’s go-to contractors,” CEO David Seaton said on Fluor’s 2016 […]

  • More Earnings on Deck This Week

    Earnings season is ramping up this week for power producers and Department of Energy contractors. Utility Entergy has scheduled its fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 earnings report before the market open on Wednesday. The quarterly conference call is scheduled for 11 a.m. Eastern time. The company, which is advancing through the regulatory process on its $110 million sale […]

  • Simulant Testing Set to Begin at IWTU

    Fluor Idaho officials say they plan to start testing again next week at the Idaho National Laboratory site’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, circulating simulated waste through the facility’s system for the first time in about nine months. The simulant run, to last 10 days, is intended to determine whether a newly designed auger grinder component […]

  • Atkins-Led Team Takes Over DUF6 Jobs at Portsmouth, Paducah

    The Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services joint venture has started work on an Energy Department contract to process depleted uranium hexafluoride left over from Cold War uranium enrichment in Ohio and Kentucky. In late September, DOE awarded Mid-America Conversion Services a five-year, $318 million depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) treatment contract, unseating incumbent BWXT Conversion Services. Fluor […]

  • LANL’s Nuclear Criticality Safety Program Falls Short of DOE Expectations

    The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear criticality safety program in fiscal 2016 fell short of Department of Energy requirements, but an improvement plan has been established, according to an annual nuclear criticality safety program metrics report submitted to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The DNFSB asked DOE in February 2016 to provide a […]

  • Public Tours Scheduled at DOE’s Portsmouth Plant

    Public tours are being offered again this year at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, the shuttered facility’s cleanup contractor announced Monday. “We are pleased to continue these special tours for the public to get a close-up view of the former uranium enrichment facilities while they are being addressed under the […]

  • Mayor Fears ‘Nuclear Dump’ Legacy for Piketon

    Wary that his village will become known only for the pile of radioactive waste the Energy Department plans to leave behind after it cleans up the nearby Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the mayor of Piketon, Ohio, is pitching the agency on a plan to reinvent the former uranium enrichment site as a DOE technology hub. […]