P--Vessel Defueling and Tank Cleaning

VESSEL DEFUELING AND TANK CLEANING PROGRAM RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT The U.S. Deptartment of Transportation, Maritime Administration (MARAD), South Atlantic Region (SAR), maintains a ship stowage facility for merchant and Navy ships at the James River Reserve Fleet (JRRF), located on the James River at Fort Eustis, VA. These ships have become obsolete due to age, and contain various quantities of fuels, oils, lubricants, oily water, and ballast water in their tanks. Some of the fuel tanks have leaks due to steel deterioration. As a result of significant interest from the industry during the past year, MARAD plans to solicit proposals for innovative approaches to environmentally safe and economically feasible fuel removal and/or tank cleaning of obsolete vessels at JRRF. The solicitation will be a Program Research and Development Announcement (PRDA). This PRDA will require identification of the types of petroleum products, total quantity of product, chemical analysis of the product, removal of the products from the vessel, and transportation of the removed products to a disposal facility or recycling facility. In addition to conventional fuel removal, disposal and tank cleaning techniques, innovative solutions will be invited that employ modern environmentally safe technology. These include, but are not limited to, safe chemical or bio-remediation techniques that dispose of residual fuel and other petroleum products from the tanks. Offerors may respond to one or both parts (defueling or tank cleaning) for any or all of the obsolete JRRF vessels containing petroleum products or oily water. Part of the cost of this project will be offset by the resale value of the petroleum products removed from the vessels. Cost effective proposals that target the vessels with high priority status will be more desirable. Proposals that are evaluated to be feasible and cost-effective will be considered for a pilot program for proof of concept and performance. The future issuance of any contract for fuel removal or tank cleaning is dependent upon the availability fo funding. It is expected that the PRDA for this work will be issued on the FedBizOps website. during the first quarter of FY 2003.