Savannah River Remediation will remain the prime liquid waste managment contractor at the Savannah River Site through Dec. 31 under a six-month contract extension the Energy Department announced Thursday.
DOE did not disclose the value of the modification in Thursday’s press release. The agency is in the middle of a competition for the next big liquid waste contract at its South Carolina facility, which will be worth some $6 billion over 10 years, including options.
“Discussion with the offerors who responded to the request for proposals is in process – a process which will extend the date of award of that action by approximately six months,” a DOE spokesperson wrote in an email reply to a request for comment.
In the release, the department said it was extending Savannah River Remediation’s deal to “allow the Department’s selection, award and transition to the new contract to occur without interruptions of ongoing services.”
The incumbent is an AECOM-led partnership that includes Bechtel, BWX Technologies, and CH2M. Before the modification, their contract, which covers solidifying more than 35 million liquid gallons of waste for safe disposal, was worth about $4 billion over eight years.
BWXT and Fluor are said to be bidding against AECOM for the follow-on pact. BXWT is reportedly partnered with Bechtel, while Fluor has teamed with Westinghouse Government Services — a limited liability company not legally part of the parent company’s bankruptcy reorganization.
The Savannah River Site liquid waste pact is the third major DOE Environmental Management acquisition to stall out during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, though that might be merely coincidence. The Department of Energy sought proposals from industry in June 2016, meaning competition was well underway long before Trump was sworn in.
Besides the Savannah River pact, DOE is also late in transitioning to new 10-year nuclear-waste-cleanup contracts at the Paducah site near Paducah, Ky., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.