The Department of Energy on Tuesday released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons.
Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for three days of one-on-one meetings beginning Sept. 17, the agency said in documents posted online. The department will accept comments about the draft Savannah River Site Operations Post Fiscal Year 2018 solicitation until Sept. 21 and expects to issue a final solicitation in January. Fluor-led incumbent Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is on the job through July 31, 2019.
The next Savannah River Site management and operations contract is expected to cover the same work the incumbent is doing now: management of site’s eponymous national laboratory, which mostly develops technology for Cold War nuclear weapons cleanup managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management; National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)-funded tritium processing; and a limited amount of waste cleanup.
The contractor would also, under the draft solicitation, be required to “develop an organizational and business structure that allows [Savannah River National Laboratory] to be able to transition into a separate contract anytime within the contract base period as directed by DOE.”
The Environmental Management office, which oversees the Savannah River Site, said it expects the new cost-plus-award-fee contract will include a five-year base period worth about $7 billion; a three-year option worth about $4.5 billion; and a two-year option worth about $2.5 billion. There is also a separate line item for construction of new NNSA tritium facilities, valued at about $520 million, in the site’s H-Area.
NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said earlier this year she was considering moving the semiautonomous DOE subagency’s tritium mission out of Savannah River, possibly to the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Tritium gas increases the yield of thermonuclear weapons.
Fluor would not comment on the draft solicitation, nor would Huntington Ingalls, another partner on Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. A spokesperson from Honeywell, the third major partner on the incumbent, had no immediate comment.
A spokesperson for another big DOE contractor, BWX Technologies, declined to comment.
A spokesperson for AECOM, a Savannah River Site industry fixture on the liquid-waste cleanup side of the business, did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.
A spokesperson for longtime DOE contractor Bechtel National sounded an optimistic, if noncommittal, note Tuesday. The company is a partner in the current liquid waste contractor at Savannah River.
“Although we generally do not comment on work we are seeking, we do evaluate many opportunities over the course of the year,” the spokesperson said by email. “Bechtel has had a presence at the Savannah River Site and the Aiken region for 40 years. It’s important work in a great area and we hope our relationship continues for years to come.”
Editor’s note, 08/23/2018, 10:45 a.m. Eastern: after releasing the draft solicitation, the Department of Energy rescheduled one-on-one meetings with interested parties. The story was changed to include the new date.
