U.S Nuclear Weapons Uranium Processing Facility

July 12, 2013
Congressional Committees
Nuclear Weapons: Factors Leading to Cost Increases with the Uranium Processing Facility.

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) site for conducting enriched uranium activities, producing uranium- related components for nuclear warheads and bombs, and processing nuclear fuel for the
U.S. Navy.1 According to NNSA, the Y-12 plant’s current enriched uranium operations (1) have an inefficient workflow due to the patchwork of facilities and equipment, (2) experience continually rising operations and maintenance costs and frequent outages and work interruptions due to facility age and deterioration, and (3) involve processes that could expose workers to radiological contamination, among other things. To address these issues, in 2004, NNSA decided to construct the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF).2 According to NNSA, the UPF will
• consist of a single, consolidated uranium processing and component production facility less than half the size of the existing Y-12 plant facilities;
• reduce the costs of enriched uranium processing by using modern processing equipment and consolidated operations; and
• use new technologies and other features that provide better worker protection and environmental health and safety.
The UPF is to be built adjacent to the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF)—the nation’s central repository for such material—and the facilities are to be joined.3 We reported in November 2010 that UPF had experienced significant cost increases.4 More recently, the upper bound of the UPF’s cost range has increased from approximately $1.1 billion in 2004 to $6.5 billion in 2012.
At the request of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and in accordance with the requirements contained in the National Defense
1NNSA is a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy. NNSA owns the buildings, equipment, and the components produced at the Y-12 plant, but the site is operated under contract to NNSA by Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, LLC (B&W), a partnership of the Babcock & Wilcox Company and Bechtel Corporation.
2B&W is the contractor managing the UPF design and has subcontracted portions of the design work to four other contractors.
3Constructed from 2004 to 2009, HEUMF is responsible for the receipt, shipment, and interim and long-term storage of current and projected inventories of highly enriched uranium.
4 GAO, Nuclear Weapons: National Nuclear Security Administration’s Plans for Its Uranium Processing Facility Should Better Reflect Funding Estimates and Technology Readiness, GAO-11-103 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2010).
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Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, GAO is to report quarterly on the UPF.5 Our objective for this first quarterly report was to identify factors that contributed to UPF’s cost increase.6 During April 2013, we provided your staff with our preliminary observations on the reasons leading to UPF’s cost increases. The attached briefing slides include the information provided (see encl. I), and this report formally transmits this information to you. To conduct our work, we reviewed pertinent cost estimate documents prepared by NNSA; the UPF contractor; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). We visited the Y-12 plant to receive briefings, tour the current enriched uranium facilities, and interview NNSA and contractor officials; we also interviewed NNSA headquarters officials and officials from the Corps. The Corps conducted an independent cost estimate of the UPF in 2011.
We conducted this performance audit from January 2013 to July 2013 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
In summary, we found the following:
• Overly optimistic NNSA assumptions about the UPF contained in multiple cost estimates prepared from 2004 to 2011 are the primary factors that contributed to its cost increase.7 Initial UPF cost estimates in 2004 and 2007 were largely based on the estimated cost to construct HEUMF because the facilities were assumed to be similar in form and design. However, NNSA designed the HEUMF as a storage facility for highly enriched uranium, in contrast to the more complex assembly/disassembly, processing, and machining operations that are to be housed in UPF. In addition, revised UPF cost estimates in 2010 and 2011 assumed that annual appropriations would not be subject to budget constraints. None of these assumptions proved to be accurate.
• In June 2012, the Deputy Secretary of Energy approved an updated cost range for the UPF ($4.2 to $6.5 billion) and deferred significant portions of the original scope. According to NNSA documentation, this deferral was due, in part, to the UPF’s increased cost estimate and to accelerate the completion of portions of the scope that were of highest priority.
• In August 2012, the UPF contractor concluded that the UPF’s roof would have to be raised 13 feet and that the start of construction would be further delayed. These factors resulted in approximately $540 million in additional costs to the UPF and occurred because the contractor did not adequately manage and integrate the design work subcontracted to the four other contractors. Given these additional costs, the confidence in the cost estimate range approved in June 2012 has been reduced, and it is not clear if the cost estimate range remains valid.
5The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 renamed the UPF as the Uranium Capabilities Replacement Project. NNSA uses the new nomenclature in its fiscal year 2014 budget request.
6Subsequent quarterly reports will focus on technology readiness and risk management, among other things.
7In January 2010, we found that DOE and NNSA needed to improve their cost-estimating practices. See, GAO,
Department of Energy: Actions Needed to Develop High Quality Cost Estimates for Construction and Environmental Cleanup Projects. GAO-10-199 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2010).
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For additional information on the results of our work, please see the briefing slides provided in enclosure I. While we are currently not making any recommendations for congressional consideration or agency action, we will continue to review UPF as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. In addition, we have ongoing audits on NNSA major projects and cost-estimating practices and will make recommendations, if appropriate, based on these future reviews.
We provided a draft of this report to NNSA for review and comment. In written comments (see encl. II), NNSA’s Associate Administrator for Management and Budget stated that, while our presentation was generally accurate with respect to the history of the UPF cost estimates, the agency believes the presentation does not reflect the efforts taken to improve UPF cost estimating and project execution. In its comments, NNSA provided several examples of completed and ongoing corrective actions, such as making significant organizational changes; applying dedicated resources to improve the evaluation of the UPF’s cost estimate; and articulating expectations to its contractor partners and using the contract to hold the UPF contractor team accountable for deficient work, which the agency believes will improve UPF project management. Furthermore, in its comments, the Associate Administrator for Management and Budget stated that NNSA had corrected the contractor’s cost estimating optimism bias and improved its risk management processes and are updating assessments of cost and impact as the UPF project design continues to mature. NNSA’s comments stated that with these corrective actions in place, the agency believes that the cost baseline established at the next key project milestone will represent a credible basis for completing the project within the established cost.
Evaluating the effectiveness of UPF-related corrective actions was beyond the scope of this work. We are encouraged by NNSA’s stated efforts to improve its cost estimating and project management capabilities. It is possible that some of NNSA’s stated actions, such as correcting the contractor’s cost estimating optimism bias, could result in a more accurate cost estimate. However, there remains some uncertainty regarding UPF’s cost estimate. As noted in our briefing slides, NNSA did not update the June 2012 range estimate to fully reflect the $540 million in additional costs associated with the need to raise UPF’s roof 13 feet to ensure the processing equipment would fit into the facility (i.e., the space/fit issue). NNSA plans to complete its review and approval of a new official cost estimate during the next key project milestone in June 2014—approximately 2 years after NNSA learned of the space/fit issue. As our briefing slides also discuss, several identified project risks remain and will require mitigation if they occur. Until the estimate is updated in June 2014, it is unclear how the agency’s stated corrective actions, the $540 million in additional costs, and the remaining project risks will impact the new cost estimate.
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We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Energy, Administrator of NNSA, and the appropriate congressional committees.
If you or your staff members have any questions concerning this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report were Jonathan Gill (Assistant Director), Patrick Bernard, Will Horton, Jason Lee, Timothy Persons, Cheryl Peterson, and Karen Richey.
David C. Trimble
Director, Natural Resources and Environment