The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to award Converdyn a five-year, sole-source contract to convert triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride as part of a new federal uranium stockpiling program.
Converdyn, a Metropolis, Ill., partnership of Honeywell and General atomics, operates the only U.S.-based conversion facility capable of turning triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wrote in a sole-source justification it posted online Monday.
NNSA’s partially redacted sole-source notice did not include the financial terms of the anticipated fixed-price deal, though it did say that Converdyn will store all the uranium hexafluoride it produces under the deal for five years.
The NNSA is in charge of creating a new uranium stockpile for U.S. power plants as part of a $75-million domestic uranium reserve Congress created in 2021 in an omnibus appropriations bill.
The NNSA, which announced in July that Converdyn would get the sole-source award, said it received 12 capability statements in response to an August 2021 request for information for uranium conversion services and that only Converdyn met the agency’s needs.