Washington (Platts)--11Feb2008

The US Department of Energy said Monday it plans to reissue a tender for
a multibillion-dollar management and operating contract for support of the
proposed spent nuclear fuel repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
"Securing the necessary contractor staff to accomplish our mission is
critical to moving the Yucca Mountain Project forward into its next phases,"
DOE waste program director Edward Sproat said, adding that DOE plans to submit
a repository license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later in
2008.
The job was last offered for tender in 2000 and resulted in Bechtel SAIC,
a limited liability corporation formed by Bechtel National and Science
Applications International Corp., being named the program's prime integration
contractor during the program's site characterization and engineering phases.
The five-year, $3.1 billion cost-plus-incentive-fee contract was the
largest awarded to date in 2000 and, DOE said at the time, could swell to $8
billion if options giving BSC another five years were exercised.
DOE said Monday that the contract had been extended through March 2009.
DOE said that key activities proposed under the new M&O contract
include managing completion of the repository design, responding to questions
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following the submission of a
repository license application to the agency, managing the construction of an
NRC-licensed repository and operating the facility.