The Department of Energy and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) have made “significant progress” settling a $200-million-plus lawsuit, according to a Wednesday court filing.
CB&I AREVA MOX Services, now majority owned by McDermott International, sued DOE and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in 2016, alleging the agency was responsible for the cost overruns and delays that led to cancellation of the MFFF at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina after a decade of construction that cost about $7 billion.
After nearly three years in court, during which the contractor rolled up eight additional complaints into the master suit, the parties “are continuing to prepare the final settlement agreement that will be presented to each party’s respective settlement authority for consideration,” according to a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court for South Carolina.
MOX Services and the federal attorney representing DOE agreed on a settlement in principal on June 18. They have been fine-tuning the agreement since and have not revealed the terms of the proposed settlement.
MOX Services received its MFFF prime contract in 1999, when the company was known as Duke Cogema Stone & Webster. The plant was designed to convert 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial reactors. No market ever materialized in the U.S. for such mixed-oxide fuel, and DOE in 2016 asked Congress to pull the plug on the facility.
The Energy Depatment now wants to turn the MFFF into a facility to produce plutonium pits for the NNSA’s nuclear-weapon life extension programs.
The parties are slated to file another update with the District Court over the MFFF lawsuit by Aug. 23, according to Wednesday’s filing.
