Waste Treatment Plant Contractor at Hanford Earns 92% of Available Fee in 2023

RICHLAND, Wash. — EM’s Office of River Protection awarded Hanford Site Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant contractor Bechtel National Inc. (BNI) approximately $9.5 million, or about 92%, of the available fee for work performed on the High-Level Waste (HLW) Facility last year.

EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments — earned by completing the work called for in their contracts — to further transparency in its cleanup program.

BNI’s performance was evaluated against seven subjective fee criteria. The contractor received four “excellent” and three “good” performance ratings for those criteria and an overall performance rating of “excellent,” according to the award fee determination scorecard.

Noteworthy performance in these areas included the following:

• Established a strong and highly experienced senior HLW Project senior leadership team and made significant progress in establishing corporate partnerships to leverage broader industry expertise for completion of the HLW Facility design;
• Initiated deployment of a fully integrated, multi-functional, integrated team of qualified and experienced personnel, including engineering, nuclear safety, procurement, construction, startup, commissioning and operations;
• Completed a comprehensive update to the HLW Facility code of record; and
• Strengthened the leadership team supporting the HLW Facility and consistently demonstrated effective, open and transparent communications.

Areas for improvement in BNI’s performance include the following:

• The efficiency and timeliness of the procurement process for plant equipment, plant material and construction subcontracts.
• The timeliness of construction material awards and resolution of field changes to support schedule achievement for planned construction activities.

View the BNI fee determination scorecard here.