The Department of Energy could solicit bids for long-term management and storage of elemental mercury in January, the Office of Environmental Management said in a procurement update after Christmas.

After court action by gold mining companies forced DOE to drop earlier plans to designate Waste Control Specialists in West Texas as its preferred long-term storage site under the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, the agency rolled out a new request for information in October 2020.

Then, this Dec. 27, the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office said the final request for proposals (RFP) for elemental mercury storage could come as soon as January. It is one of four final RFPs that could hit the streets by the end of March, the agency said in the notice. 

The DOE nuclear cleanup office also said Dec. 27 that a proposed RFP for technical assistance contracts for EM field sites could come out in February. Stay tuned for additional information to be released on the technical assistance business prior to publication of the RFP, EM said in the latest notice.

Then, in March, final RFPs on contracts for work at former DOE gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky could be released, EM said.

With the Portsmouth Decontamination and Decommissioning contract in Ohio, EM seeks a successor to Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, which has a $4.4-billion deal that began in March 2011 and runs through March 2023. The DOE office said previously it could release a draft RFP in November or December. Now it seems the office will go straight to a final RFP.

Finally, DOE could issue a final RFP in March for Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Operations and Site Mission Support at both Portsmouth and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. 

Mid-America Conversion Services, a team made up of Atkins, Westinghouse and Fluor, is the incumbent on the DUF6 deal, with a $550-million contract awarded in February 2017 and which, barring an extension, is scheduled to expire Jan. 31.