Honeywell [HON] has sold its stake in the Fluor [FLR]-led joint venture that runs the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the company said last week.
The company has divested its interest in Savannah River Nuclear Solutions to the remaining partners, Fluor and Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII], Honeywell said in a July 3 press release. The site, a former plutonium production complex for nuclear weapons, is set to play a big role in the 30-year nuclear arsenal modernization program the Obama administration started in 2016.
“We are confident that Fluor and Huntington Ingalls will continue to deliver long-term value to the Savannah River Site as a significant portion of its scope shifts to major capital construction and start-up of plutonium production activities,” David Johnson, vice president of Honeywell Federal Solutions, said in a July 3
press release. For its part, Honeywell remains committed to DOE work “and will continue to partner with them on opportunities that align with Honeywell’s core capabilities and strategic objectives,” he added.
The release did not specify what percentage of the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions joint venture was held by Honeywell or how much it is being sold for. Honeywell will report quarterly earnings on July 27 and it is possible more detail could come out then.
Honeywell helps manage multiple DoE sites as part of joint ventures, including Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Kansas City National Security Site and Nevada National Security Site campuses.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions has been the prime at the DoE site near Aiken, S.C., since January 2008 under a recently-extended contract now valued at $28.5-billion and not currently scheduled to expire until September 2026, according to a recent summary of agency contracts. Conceivably, the prime contractor could stick around through September 2027, under a potential four-year extension reached last September.
The DoE elected to keep Savannah River Nuclear Solutions in place while chief responsibility for the Savannah River Site is being transferred to the National Nuclear Security Administration from the Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2025. In the 2030s, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency plans to open a new factory at Savannah River to produce plutonium pits, the fissile cores of nuclear-weapon first stages.
A Huntington Ingalls spokesperson declined to comment. Fluor did not respond to a request for comment.
This story first appeared in Defense Daily affiliate publication Weapons Complex Monitor.