Contracts & Procurement

The Department of Energy is, for now, retaining Battelle Memorial Institute as its lead contractor for a deep-borehole nuclear waste storage field test after the original drilling plan was thwarted in North Dakota. DOE spokesman Bill Wicker said by email Wednesday that the department has asked Battelle to propose options outside North Dakota. “Battelle remains DOE’s […]

Southern California Edison expects in June or July to select a prime contractor for decommissioning of its shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego, a senior official said last week. SCE Vice President Tom Palmisano, SONGS decommissioning and chief nuclear officer, said he could not discuss the criteria the company is using in […]

The Energy Department is preparing a procurement road map for replacing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of expiring cleanup contracts at the former Hanford Site plutonium production plant near Richland, Wash., and should release at least part of that plan later this year, a DOE official said Wednesday. A summary of this “Joint Master Acquisition Plan” […]

The Energy Department said this week it will solicit bids to build a transuranic liquid waste processing facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the fourth quarter. The contract for the so-called Transuranic Liquid Waste Project will be worth between $15 million and $20 million, DOE said in a procurement note […]

Government contracting giant Bechtel on Tuesday said it had promoted company veteran Barbara Rusinko to the dual positions of executive vice president of its nuclear, security, and environmental branch and president of subsidiary Bechtel National. In her new position, the career engineer will head up a multibillion-dollar group of operations that encompass engineering, construction, project management, […]

Terri Marts has been appointed president of AECOM subsidiary Professional Solutions, the parent company said Monday. Marts will be the top executive with Professional Solutions, which provides “engineering, consulting and nuclear safety analyses” to the Energy Department and commercial nuclear power companies, according to an AECOM press release. Marts was most recently AECOM’s vice president of high-level […]

Southern California Edison expects in June or July to select a prime contractor for decommissioning of its shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego, a senior official said last week. SCE Vice President Tom Palmisano, SONGS decommissioning and chief nuclear officer, said he could not discuss the criteria the utility is using in […]

Industry officials are split in their perspectives on changes to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) approach to its procurement process, with some criticizing major shifts in the NNSA’s focus of contractor evaluations and others arguing the new model will be more efficient. Several industry sources not authorized to publicly discuss the matter spoke to […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security, the managing and operating contractor at the Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons plants, is gradually revealing more of its vigorous hiring campaign to meet the challenges of additional work on a compressed time schedule. Michelle Reichert, CNS’ deputy enterprise manager, issued a message to employees at both sites on Wednesday, explaining some […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 3/11/2016 Northrop Grumman’s Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) contract is backloaded to the point where the company is incentivized to get through the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase as “soon as practical,” Air Force Secretary Deborah James said Monday. The Air Force is rolling out additional details on the highly […]

Contractors and stakeholder organizations in New Mexico have complained to state and federal legislators about a procurement program in the Department of Energy that they believe is gradually reducing spending priorities for small, local businesses. Some of them worry that a National Nuclear Security Administration program that organizes very large-scale acquisition projects is siphoning jobs […]

Centrus Energy Corp. said Tuesday it has signed “several” sales contracts over the last nine months to provide enriched uranium fuel to utility customers that supply electricity worldwide. Fuel will be delivered through 2022 under these new contracts, valued at a total of about $165 million, the supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear […]

PHOENIX — Major cleanup contractors working across the Energy Department’s weapons complex bemoaned contracting trends at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management that, they say, have made it harder to justify bidding on cleanup work. “I think there’s still a strong case, but I can tell you, it’s getting more and more difficult every day,” Kenneth Camplin, vice […]

PHOENIX — The Energy Department plans to release a draft solicitation for Savannah River Site liquid cleanup work worth between $1 billion and $3 billion by March 31, a senior DOE procurement official said here Wednesday. It is the first, and one of the largest, of several weapons complex cleanup solicitations and awards set for […]

PHOENIX — The Energy Department has almost finished tweaking an $11.4-billion contract with Bechtel National that will officially clear the San Francisco-based company to modify the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) to begin treating low-level nuclear waste by 2022. Conceived more than 15 years ago to turn some 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive […]

North Wind Services of Idaho Falls will start building the Accelerated Retrieval Project (ARP) IX enclosure at the Energy Department’s Idaho Site under a one-year, $1.7 million letter contract DOE announced in a Tuesday press release. ARP is a program to build enclosures over buried waste at Pit 10 East in the subsurface disposal area […]

Linda Kobel has been appointed president and chief executive of Albuquerque consulting shop Los Alamos Technical Associates, the company announced Tuesday. Kobel, who joined the firm in 2012, takes over for William Vantine. She was most recently president of the company’s Energy and Nuclear Division. Los Alamos Technical Associates also announced Mike Kennicott will become executive […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management issued a one-year task order worth up to $2.8 million from its indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract with SUNSi JV, of Pocatello, Idaho, for expert consultation at the agency’s Separations Process Research Unit site in Niskayuna, N.Y. Under the task order, SUNSi JV will “provide the services of full-time […]

The Energy Department plans to release a draft solicitation for Savannah River liquid cleanup work worth between $1 billion and $3 billion by March 31, a senior DOE procurement official said Wednesday at the 2016 Waste Management Conference. By the end of the month, “I think you’ll have a draft on your hands,” Jack Surash, […]

Centrus Energy Corp. said Tuesday it has signed “several” sales contracts over the last nine months to provide enriched uranium fuel to utility customers that supply electricity worldwide. Fuel will be delivered through 2022 under these new contracts, valued at a total of about $165 million, the supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear […]

Northrop Grumman’s Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) contract is backloaded to the point where the company is incentivized to get through the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase as “soon as practical,” Air Force Secretary Deborah James said Monday. The Air Force is rolling out additional details on the highly classified LRSB, or B-21, program, […]

The Energy Department has almost finished tweaking an $11.4-billion contract with Bechtel National that will officially clear the San Francisco-based company to modify the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) to begin treating low-level nuclear waste by 2022. Conceived more than 15 years ago to turn some 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste […]

Major cleanup contractors working across the Energy Department’s weapons complex bemoaned contracting trends at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management that, they say, have made it harder to justify bidding on cleanup work. “I think there’s still a strong case, but I can tell you, it’s getting more and more difficult every day,” Kenneth Camplin, vice president and […]

The Energy Department is seeking information, but no bids yet, about a contract to manage occupational medical services at the highly contaminated Hanford Site in Washington state, the agency said Monday. DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center released the sources sought/request for information online, with the aim of learning more about what industry can offer […]

Senior U.S. and U.K. government nuclear cleanup officials and contractors Tuesday morning will compare and contrast the two nations’ approaches to this work, for which the U.S. Department of Energy and U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority each spends $5 billion to $6 billion annually. The speakers will offer insight into the successes and challenges in this sector, along […]

After a morning plenary session in which the United Kingdom’s top nuclear decommissioning official extolled the virtues of transitioning nuclear cleanup partnerships with industry away from cost-reimbursable contracts, the head procurement official in the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) said such contracts will remain the cornerstone of legacy waste cleanup in the United […]

The Energy Department has awarded Portsmouth Mission Alliance, a subsidiary of North Wind Solutions, a five-year, $139.7 million infrastructure support services contract at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, Ohio, the company said Saturday. The host of services covered by the contract at the former uranium enrichment site, which is undergoing decontamination and decommissioning, […]

The Department of Energy has issued a request for information as an early step toward plans for a Hanford Office of River Protection tank farm contract or contracts for post-fiscal 2018. It described the request as market research, emphasizing that no proposals are being sought yet. In October DOE issued a similar request for information […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security, the government’s managing contractor for the Y-12 and Pantex sites, is engaged in one of the biggest hiring campaigns of the post-Cold War nuclear weapons complex. The contractor plans to hire about 300 workers over the next three months, according to a 90-day plan released by CEO Morgan Smith, who assumed leadership […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 3/4/2016 ORLANDO, Fla.–The Air Force since the spring of 2014 has been briefing appropriate congressional members and staffers on its classified Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) acquisition strategy and it will continue explaining itself as it moves forward, Air Force Secretary Deborah James said Friday. James’ remarks come in response to […]