Bidders for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s potentially 10-year, $30-billion contract to manage two of the country’s main nuclear-weapons production sites have until the second week of August to turn in their final proposals, the agency said this week.
The final proposal revisions are due at 4 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 9, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency wrote in a procurement note posted online and dated Monday.
According to sources, bidders for the combined management and operations contract for the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Site in Tennessee are: Bechtel National, Reston, Va.; BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va.; and Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) this week held discussions with the qualified bidders, who according to this week’s procurement note received “a discussion letter with an attachment titled, ‘Matters for Discussion’” to get the ball rolling on final proposal revisions.
The Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) is the incumbent at Pantex and Y-12 under a $2 billion-a-year deal that was recently extended through Nov. 30 so the NNSA could complete competition for a follow-on accord. After the transition to the new contractor, CNS will remain at Y-12 to finish building the site’s Uranium Processing Facility, the next-generation manufacturing plant for nuclear-weapon secondary stages.
The NNSA’s competition for the new combined management and operations contract took a little longer than the agency thought it would when the solicitation hit the street last year. Initially, the NNSA wanted to begin transitioning to the new contractor in June. Many people have speculated that the procurement went into limbo after Joe Biden was elected president and the NNSA’s senior political leadership turned over.
Jill Hruby was confirmed as the Biden administration’s NNSA administrator last week.
The contract now at stake is worth just under $28 billion over 10 years, with options. That includes five years of firm money. Pantex is where the NNSA assembles, disassembles, modernizes and maintains all U.S. nuclear weapons. At Y-12 in addition to making secondary stages, NNSA prepares highly enriched uranium for processing into naval reactor fuel at off-site commercial facilities operated by BWXT subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services.
