Brandon Williams, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said Wednesday the agency is rebidding the contract for Savannah River Site due to a “not acceptable” performance on the pit production program.

“We are rebidding the contract because we agree with you that the timeline and the budget is not acceptable,” Williams said while testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the fiscal 2027 budget for NNSA. “$20 billion is not an acceptable number, and we will be providing more information as those bids and conversations with contractors come together this summer, but we are reevaluating the requirements from a bottoms up, top down approach.”

Williams added, “I know that sounds like a cliché, but we have this urgency and we need that for the plutonium mission. So believe me, it is an extremely high priority for us.”

In late February, the request for proposals for a standalone performance-based contract at Savannah River Site was released, with responses due May 13.

Currently, the management and operation at Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. is run by the Fluor-led joint venture, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS). In NNSA’s fiscal 2025 performance evaluation reports for each of the prime contractors at its site, while SRNS received a “Very Good” rating, evaluators said the contractor “underperformed” in project execution for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility.

Williams was responding to a question by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the committee. Reed congratulated the “great success” at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but said Savannah River, particularly its Plutonium Processing Facility, is “still not up to scale and completed.”

“We share your concern about the Savannah River pit production, the slow progress and the rather high budget estimations we’ve seen so far,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, another witness at the hearing, said in response. “We are passionate about better engineering, better designing, figuring out how to deliver that facility in a timely fashion at a reasonable budget that’s responsible use of the taxpayer funds, and to get up to pace on pit production at our second facility.”

The SRNS contract runs out on Sept. 30, 2026, but there is a 12-month option still remaining on the contract that, if exercised, would extend the contract to Sept. 30, 2027.

“As NNSA has shared publicly, the current contract with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions expires September 30, 2026,” an NNSA spokesperson told Exchange Monitor this week. “One remaining 12-month extension option is still available under SRNS’ contract. NNSA is committed to keeping stakeholders informed and will provide updates through official public channels as new information becomes available.”