Jacobs Engineering, of Dallas, is in talks to purchase Dallas-based engineering firm and DOE nuclear contractor CH2M, the U.K. Telegraph reported last week.
The rumored purchase, reported Sunday by the Telegraph to be in danger of collapsing, comes as CH2M is busily seeking even more nuclear cleanup work from the Department of Energy.
Spokespersons for CH2M and Jacobs did not reply to requests for comment Monday.
Change in ownership has had undesirable side effects in DOE nuclear procurements in very recent memory.
Last year, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration revoked the award of the management and operations contract for its Nevada National Security Site after learning the company that won the work — originally a Lockheed Martin subsidiary — had been transferred to Leidos. After a recompete that wrapped up in May, the NNSA awarded the deal instead to a Honeywell-led partnership that includes Jacobs. An industry source speculated that changing the original winner’s parent company changed the original winner’s past performance, one of the key metrics considered in NNSA procurements.
CH2M is said to be bidding on some major DOE nuclear-waste cleanup contracts, including at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M. The company is already a major presence across the DOE nuclear complex, most notably at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., where it primes solid waste cleanup under a 10-year contract awarded in 2008 and worth up to $5.8 billion.
Besides the Hanford work, CH2M is already a major nuclear-cleanup partner at DOE’s Oak Ridge, Savannah River, and West Valley sites.
