The Department of Energy is extending North Wind Solutions’ transuranic waste processing work by up to 24 months at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a recently-posted notice on a federal procurement website.
The DOE issued its justification for issuing the extension, without a full and open competition, on Thursday although the actual extension was issued around Thanksgiving, a DOE spokesperson said Friday by email. Apparently, there was a several-month delay in the justification being posted on the procurement website, the DOE spokesperson said.
The federal agency is modifying the existing North Wind contract, set to expire in October, by 18 months plus one six-month option period.
Under the proposed extension the maximum period work will be from Oct. 27 of this year through Oct. 26, 2022. The maximum value of the deal will be $75-million, or a little more than $3-million per month. The current North Wind contract to operate the Transuranic Waste Processing Center started in October 2015 and, before the latest extension, was valued at about $175 million.
This latest move builds upon an earlier two-year extension issued in February 2019 to the original three-year base period.
The subsidiary of Idaho-based North Wind processes, packages, and ships transuranic waste from Oak Ridge to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
