The DOE’s Office of Environmental Management has selected Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, a consortium made up of three companies including Irving, Texas-based Fluor, to perform work at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site in Richland, Washington, according to a press release.
The consortium for the nation’s largest and most complex nuclear waste project consists of Fluor, Lynchburg, Virginia-based BWX Technologies and Chantilly, Virginia-based Amentum.
Fluor will likely maintain a 20% to 30% stake in the joint venture, according to Andrew Wittmann, senior research analyst at Milwaukee-based financial services company Baird. The project will fall under Fluor’s Missions Solutions segment, he added.
The $45 billion indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract over a 10-year ordering period covers a broad scope of work, including:
- Design, construction and operation of waste receiving facilities and treatment capabilities.
- Operation of tank farm facilities, including single-shell tank waste retrieval and closure.
- Operation of the waste treatment and immobilization plant.
- Core functions such as project management, safety, business performance requirements, security and emergency services.
Fluor won a similar contract at Hanford, albeit smaller, along with Amentum from the DOE in 2020, according to the Baird research note shared with Construction Dive. That contract was subsequently canceled when the DOE decided a different approach was needed.
Wittmann said to expect a protest, standard with large contracts, from the losing bid-teams. That should delay Fluor’s backlog recognition of the award until the protest clears, which generally takes six to nine months, according to Wittmann.
“[Protests] probably delays Fluor’s backlog recognition until the second half of 2023,” said Wittmann in the analyst note. “This will likely be a very large award when it hits Fluor’s recognition threshold.”