Sandia Labs management contract officially up for grabs

The Department of Energy issued a solicitation on May 18 that opened up bidding on a Sandia National Laboratories management contract that's worth almost $3 billion.

The lab's current management contract with Lockheed Martin's Sandia Corp., which has run the lab for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration since 1993, expires in April 2017.

The Energy Department issued a request for proposals for the contract on May 18. Bids are due by June 30 and the department is expected to award by the end of the year.

Interest heated up immediately after the announcement. The Albuquerque Journal reported on May 19 that Fluor, CGI Federal, Information Technology Corp., Definitive Logic Corp, Lockheed Martin, Battelle, Boeing, the University of New Mexico, the Texas A&M University System and the University of Texas System have all shown interest in the contract.

On May 24, the independent research and development group Battelle announced that it was linking up with Boeing and several state universities, including the University of New Mexico, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas, to pursue the contract.

Sandia's laboratories, located in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., have an annual operating budget of about $2.88 billion and employ more than 10,000 people. The labs develop, engineer and test non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons to ensure reliability; conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies; and explore methods to dispose of the nuclear weapons program's hazardous waste.

Battelle already has contracts to manage six of the national labs, including the Brookhaven, Lawrence Livermore, National Renewable Energy, Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest facilities. It also has a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to manage DHS' National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center in Maryland.