Fluor Federal Services will build a nuclear weapons storage and maintenance facility at the an Frances E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming, under a three-and-a-quarter year Army Corps of Engineers contract worth $145 million, the company said Tuesday.
The 90,000 square-foot facility will include a fueling station, a generator building and a fire pump building, Fluor wrote in a press release. Warren Air Force Base is one of three intercontinental ballistic missile bases, where the U.S. maintains underground silos filled with Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped mostly with W78 warheads made by the Department of Energy.
The corps estimated the project would cost between $80,000,000 and $100,000,000, according to documents posted online.
It was not clear at deadline Tuesday who, if anyone, Fluor beat out to build the new storage and maintenance facility. The corps did not post the solicitation for the contract online, or say how many responsive proposals it received.
Competition for the contract began officially in May 2017, according to public procurement notices. Presolicitation fact finding began in June 2016.
According to estimates compiled by the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists, the U.S. fields 400 land-based ballistic missiles across three missile bases, including Warren.
With this construction contract, Fluor’s star rises a little higher in nuke world.
The federal services unit, led by former National Nuclear Security Administration chief Thomas D’Agostino, secured a place at Los Alamos national lab earlier this year as a high-profile, integrated subcontractor within Triad National Security.
Triad, a non-profit partnership, took over the main U.S. weapons lab Nov. 1 from the for-profit Los Alamos National Security: a partnership in which Fluor rival Bechtel National had a leading role.