The cost of building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site is expected to rise by more than $2 billion and the projected schedule for completing the project would slip “significantly” according to a new estimate by MOX contractor Shaw AREVA MOX Services, NW&M Monitor has learned. The project’s 2007 baseline estimated that the facility would cost $4.8 billion and be up and running by 2016, but it has faced a significant rise in commodity prices as well as hiring and retention issues, problems finding nuclear qualified vendors and difficulty obtaining specialty components from the long-dormant nuclear industry. The National Nuclear Security Administration is believed to be validating the current estimate and has not approved a new baseline for the project.
While the project has had its share of challenges, its scope has also increased as current plans call for the installation of several furnaces that will help establish within the MOX facility a pit disassembly and conversion capability that was initially planned for a standalone building. That plan is expected to significantly decrease pit disassembly and conversion costs, which were estimated to cost $2.3 billion according to a 2005 estimate but almost $5 billion several years later. Installing the furnaces in the MOX facility is believed to cost about $400 million, which would help defray the cost of increases in the MOX facility itself. Shaw AREVA MOX Services directed questions on the project to the NNSA, which declined to comment.
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