The Government Accountability Office has issued another defeat to a Babcock & Wilcox-led consortium that has fought the loss of a large Department of Energy management contract for the last year.
On Thursday the GAO dismissed Nuclear Production Partners' third protest of a DOE decision to award management of the Y-12 and Pantex security sites to a consortium led by Bechtel. In a release, B&W Technical Services Group President George Dudich said: "Each of the Nuclear Production Partners protests raised issues that our team believed were valid. While we are disappointed with the GAO decision, we will evaluate the decision and consider our options. The B&W-led teams currently in place at Y-12 and Pantex remain focused on operating both sites safely and securely.”
The latest protest appealed a decision by DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration reaffirming its choice of contractor after an earlier GAO decision requiring the NNSA to reevaluate cost savings claimed in bid submissions. Another earlier appeal had been dismissed as premature.
At stake is an extendable five-year contract worth upward of $22 billion to run both sites and manage the construction of Y-12's Uranium Processing Facility, with an option to manage tritium production at the Savannah River Site. B&W had managed Y-12 and Pantex for 11 years before DOE's decision to move the contract to Consolidated Nuclear Security, a consortium that includes Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, ATK and SOC.