Bechtel National, Inc. Wins Two More Cooperative Threat Reduction Contracts

BNI will carry out both contracts as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) agreement reached by the U.S. and former Soviet governments under terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaties.

The two-year, $5.3 million assignment in Ukraine--known as Demilitarization of the Unified Fill Facilities (UFF)--involves the dismantling of two SS-19 ICBM liquid fueling facilities near Pervomaysk and Khmelnitski, as well as the destruction of nuclear weapons storage areas located near the same two cities, and a nuclear waste pit at Makarov. All of the facilities are under the jurisdiction of the former Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces.

Working for the U.S. Department of Defense and Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, BNI will coordinate the elimination of all ICBM apparatus at the sites, demolish silos and launch control installations, and remove all operational support infrastructure.

Included in each UFF complex are such components as above-ground ICBM fuel and oxidizer storage tanks, mechanical equipment, earth-covered and semi-buried bunkers and structures, buried distribution piping and utilities, maintenance buildings, communication systems, and support buildings. The nuclear waste storage areas include earth-covered storage magazines, contaminated storage pits, supplies, vehicles, and maintenance and administration buildings.

In the MOPS project, BNI will take on an $8.1 million, five-year assignment to design, procure, fabricate, install, test, and provide technical support for systems that will convert two types of liquid oxidizers from Russian ICBMs into nitric acid. In all, the systems will convert 43,000 metric tons of amyl oxidizer and 80,000 metric tons of melange oxidizer to nitric acid, a product that is often commercially used for making fertilizer.
The first system will be installed at a Ministry of Defense depot at Pavlovsky Posad, about 100 miles northeast of Moscow, while the second will be situated at an undisclosed location in Russia. Work is expected to be completed by June 1, 2004.

Some of Bechtel National's prior assignments under the CTR program include the dismantlement of more than 130 SS-19 and another 40 SS-24 missile silo and launch control centers in Ukraine; the development of an implementation plan for a chemical weapons destruction program in Russia; the design and construction of a storage facility for fissile material contained in disassembled Russian nuclear response weapons; the design and construction of a solid rocket motor disposal plant in Russia; the development of a test and evaluation center to enhance the security of nuclear weapons sites in Russia; and an assignment involving heavy equipment operator maintenance and training facilities in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Currently, Bechtel National also is involved in an effort to clean up, decommission, and stabilize the damaged Unit 4 reactor building of Ukraine's Chornobyl nuclear power station.