The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Middle East District awarded a Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) to six Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) companies on Nov. 29, 2021.
Simply put, a MATOC is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract awarded to multiple firms following a formal selection process. It provides for an indefinite quantity of services to be furnished during a fixed period of time. All awarded firms are capable of satisfying the requirements.
The MATOC is expected to include construction, predominantly design-bid-build construction packages, site-adapt-construction, and renovations and repairs at several different sites, to meet the needs of Saudi Arabia’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Program. The wide range of facilities and infrastructure were required and requested by the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces (RSADF) under a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) case.
The total estimated ceiling for the MATOC is $990,000,000. The period of performance is a two-year base and up to five one-year option periods for a total of seven years through the first quarter of fiscal year 2029.
Each of the six firms is guaranteed a minimum $10,000, and the right to compete for individual task orders. The six successful contractors are:
- Orient Construction Co. – Weavers
- Al-Latifia Trading & Contracting Co.
- Saudi Archirodon Limited Co.
- Al Yamama Company for Trading and Contracting
- Al Bawani Co., LTD
- El Seif Engineering Contracting Co.
The contract was competed as an FMS-host country directed, limited source competition in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and is funded entirely by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This process provides a fair and impartial evaluation of the proposals received from all proposers. The final selection was based upon the Government’s evaluation of all criteria established for this MATOC.
The benefits of having a MATOC in place include efficiency, time, and speed.
“Because the contracts are already in place, the time it takes to award a task order is about half the time of a separate contract,” said Carlos Ramos, contracting officer and chief of TAM’s A-E Construction Branch. “When a requirement is determined and the task order is defined, the letter Request for Proposal (RFP) will be provided to the six MATOC holders. Their responses are typically much smaller than the much larger, more detailed submissions required for individual contracts. The time from proving an RFP to task order award is typically weeks versus months when compared to individual contracts for each requirement.”
The RFP for the first task order was released on Dec. 3, 2021.
While many team members have been involved throughout the process of awarding the MATOC, the core procurement team members have been Contract Specialist Christa Proctor, Contracting Officer Carlos Ramos, Office of Counsel Regina Schowalter, Program Manager Lora Carroll, and Contracting Officer Representative Steve Patton.
“Over the past 15 months, our core procurement team has been working with the pool of preferred KSA construction companies provided by the RSADF for the limited competition, to ensure that they fully understood the USACE acquisition process, contractor code of business ethics and conduct, tips for preparing a successful proposal and next steps after submitting a proposal, and a full review of the draft solicitation requirements prior to release of the MATOC RFP,” said Carroll. “This partnering was essential in being able to award to a qualified pool of six construction contractors, most of which have not previously executed a USACE contract. We feel they are better prepared to bid and execute the work under individual task orders, given the time we spent helping them understand our processes and procedures.”
MATOCs have proven to be invaluable tools in the past, with Team TAM overseeing more than $10 billion in task orders for work in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility for both the US military and our allied partners in the region.