A group comprised of BWX Technologies, Bechtel National, and Honeywell International has won a contract valued at $4.7 billion over 10 years for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management announced Thursday.
Savannah River EcoManagement’s contact features a seven-year base and a three-year option period. The agreement includes a transition period of 90 days, according to a DOE news release.
The incumbent contract is held by Savannah River Remediation, a team led by AECOM with partners Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWXT.
The Energy Department said it received three bid proposals in response to the solicitation for the just-announced contract. Along with the EcoManagement team, AECOM and CH2M remained partners in the bidding, while the third group was believed to be comprised of Fluor and Westinghouse Government Services.
“We are very pleased with this contract award and look forward to executing this important work,” said BWXT spokesman Jud Simmons.
“We appreciate the Department of Energy’s confidence in the team’s ability. We look forward to continuing our contributions at the site and the Aiken region,” said a Bechtel spokesman, Fred deSousa.
“We are disappointed by the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site liquid waste decision and we are carefully reviewing all of our options going forward,” an AECOM spokesperson said Thursday in an email response to a Weapons Complex Monitor inquiry.
An industry source Thursday said he would not be surprised if at least one of the losing parties protested the award. That would come after DOE conducts a briefing for the parties that submitted bids.
Another source said there are different ways that parties could challenge the outcome, including asking DOE for a rebid. A formal protest could also be filed with the Government Accountability Office.
The DOE news release did not discuss staffing or management for Savannah River EcoManagement. One industry source expects key staff will include Michael Graham, operations manager at Bechtel National.
The contract covers storage and disposal operations for about 35 million gallons of waste left behind by Cold War nuclear weapons operations at the facility near Aiken. S.C.
A week before the contract announcement, BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden told an investor gathering in New York that he liked his company’s chances for the SRS liquid waste contract.
“We’re competing for the Savannah River Liquid Waste, we’re competing for the Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup and there’s other stuff out in the future,” he said, according to a transcript. “Hanford, and Savannah River management and operations, and so there’s a lot of stuff out there and we like our competitive position as it relates to the backlog opportunities.”
Honeywell has been on a hot streak lately with DOE, picking up the management and operations contract for the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and partnering with Jacobs Engineering Group and Stoller Newport News Nuclear to secure the M&O deal for the Nevada National Security Site.