Nuclear Street News Team – 2013-01-11 00:49:28
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2013/01/09/nnsa-hires-bechtel_2d00_lockheed-team-to-manage-y_2d00_12_2c00_-pantex-010902.aspx
NNSA Hires Bechtel-Lockheed Team to Manage Y-12, Pantex
(January 9, 2013) — The National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded a consortium led by Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin Services a contract worth upwards of $709 million to take over management of nuclear weapons facilities that include Y-12 and Pantex.
Subsidiaries of Babcock & Wilcox had held the management contracts at Y-12 and Pantex for 12 years. A B&W-led consortium and another group led by Fluor also bid for the new contract. It covers five years of operations at Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and at Pantex near Amarillo, Texas, starting May 1, with an optional five-year extension.
Additional contract terms encompasses construction project management at the Y-12 Uranium Processing Facility and a contract option for the consortium to produce tritium at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The fee to manage Y-12, Pantex and the tritium facility would total about $446 million, depending on the awardee’s performance and when the tritium option would take effect. In a release Tuesday, NNSA said it expects the combined contract under the agency’s new management strategy will create savings of $3.27 billion. If that turns out to be the case, the contractor could earn an additional $263 million.
The winning consortium, known as Consolidated Nuclear Security, was formed by Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, ATK Launch Systems and SOC. Booz Allen Hamilton will be among its professional services subcontractors; and the consortium will also subcontract with General Atomics for tritium production operations, if that option is exercised.
While CNS will take over the troubled design work at the Uranium Processing Facility and then oversee construction management, NNSA has yet to name a contractor to build the $6.5 billion plant.
The NNSA manages America’s nuclear weapons complex as a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy. Its Y12 site primarily processes and stores highly enriched uranium. Its Pantex facility was created to assemble weapons components fabricated at other NNSA facilities, and it disassembles decommissioned warheads.
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