Officials say little about Monday hearing on Y-12, Pantex contract

Officials said little about the federal hearing held Monday to discuss the consolidated but contested contract to manage the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas.

The hearing is related to the protest filed by Nuclear Production Partners LLC, or NP2, which has contested the decision to award the contract to Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC of Reston, Va. Originally announced in January 2013, the contract could be worth up to $22.8 billion over a decade.

The hearing had originally been scheduled for Jan. 29, but it was rescheduled.

It’s the third protest filed by NP2, of Lynchburg, Va. One was also filed early last year by another unsuccessful bidding team, Integrated Nuclear Production Solutions LLC of Oak Ridge.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office is expected to announce a decision on NP2’s most recent protest, which was filed in November, by Feb. 28.

The GAO upheld one part of NP2’s first protest, and denied or dismissed three elements of the second. In November, the National Nuclear Security Administration reaffirmed its decision to pick CNS for the five-year extendable contract.

The NP2 team is led by Babcock and Wilcox Co., which is now the lead management and operating contractor at Y-12 and Pantex. The operating teams at both plants also include Bechtel Corp., and Bechtel National is part of CNS, which is competing against the B&W-led team.

The consolidated Y-12 and Pantex contract includes project management of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 and an unexercised option for Savannah River Tritium Operations at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. Federal officials have said the consolidated contract, the result of years of work, could save money in part by eliminating redundancies in such areas as human resources, purchasing, finance, and information technology. They said CNS had promised to save the federal government $3.27 billion during the next decade.