The prime contractor on a Department of Energy facility designed to turn surplus nuclear-weapon plutonium into commercial reactor fuel said government meddling on the project made it impossible for the company to fulfill its contractual obligations and earn its fees, according to federal court papers dated Friday.
The claim is part of an amended complaint filed Friday by CB&I AREVA MOX Services. The company sued in August and now claims DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) mismanaged the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility contract, then blamed resulting delays and missed milestones on the contractor.
In total, MOX Services asked the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to award the company more than $200 million in damages for the NNSA’s alleged breach of contract.
“Due to events and circumstances caused by NNSA or for which NNSA accepted the risk – including domestic and international political events that have directly impacted the project, uneven congressional support for the project evidenced by inadequate funding, and NNSA mismanagement – the work MOX Services must perform to fulfill the contract has increased substantially,” the company wrote in its 27-page amended complaint.
“Rather than properly acknowledge the effects of these events and circumstances as scope changes to the contract or risks assumed by NNSA, at nearly every turn NNSA has blamed MOX Services,” the company said.
The NNSA declined to comment Monday, citing its policy against discussing pending litigation.
The Department of Energy since 1999 has spent $5 billion on MOX, which is intended to turn 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium into commercial reactor fuel as part of a 2000 arms-control pact with Russia.
The Barack Obama administration said the MOX process would cost too much and called for canceling the project and instead diluting the surplus plutonium, mixing the material into concrete pillars, and disposing of cylinders at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The Trump administration has gone along with this plan, but the fate of the facility remains uncertain. Congress has so far refused to fund any effort to cancel the project.
