Request for Expression of Interest for Construction of a Centre for Chemistry and Technology for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Netherlands

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons​ is pleased to invite participants in this Request for Expression of Interest (REOI), to pre-qualify select proposers to compete for the construction of a Centre for Chemistry and Technology in Pijnacker-Nootdorp, the Netherlands, to upgrade its existing Laboratory and Equipment Store, currently located in Rijswijk, the Netherlands.

https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/featured-topics/chemtech-centre.

To receive the REOI documents, reputable construction companies interested in participating shall contact procurement@opcw.org with subject REOI-CCT-P20-001 Request to access REOI documents.

More information:

1 Presentation of the OPCW

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 States Parties oversees the global endeavour to permanently and verifiably eliminate chemical weapons and prevent their re-emergence. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. More information can be found on www.opcw.org.

2 ChemTech Project

The OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store was inaugurated in 1996 in the town of Rijswijk, which is just outside The Hague. Initially, the work of the Laboratory and Equipment Store focused primarily on supporting the OPCW’s demilitarisation activities and missions, routine inspections of industrial facilities for verification purposes, and international cooperation and assistance activities.

In recent years, however, the work of the Laboratory and Equipment Store has changed significantly to reflect States Parties’ changing and growing requirements. Currently, these include responding to the emergence of new chemical weapons threats, which require the development of new and improved verification tools and expanded capabilities to conduct non-routine missions and to provide greater support for international cooperation and assistance activities.

The growing and evolving activities of the Laboratory and Equipment Store have led to increasingly severe space constraints in the Rijswijk facility, which is a rented facility that has no possibility for expansion. Moreover, the facility’s infrastructure is aging as no major infrastructure upgrades have been undertaken since the OPCW’s arrival.

To meet the future needs of the Laboratory and Equipment Store, in 2017, the Technical Secretariat began to study options for upgrading its capabilities. Between September and November 2017, the Technical Secretariat prepared a report describing the need, initial estimated cost, and initial estimated timeline for a project to construct a new facility for the Laboratory and Equipment Store. The Needs Statement was presented to States Parties at the Twenty-Second Session of the Conference of the States Parties in November 2017, and the project to construct the new ChemTech Centre began.

The specific objectives for the Project as identified in the Programme of Requirements are:

• * Augmenting the laboratory’s analytical capabilities;
• * Obtaining new laboratory capabilities to engage in research activities;
• * Augmenting the capability to test, evaluate, and deploy equipment on missions;
• * Augmenting training capabilities for OPCW inspectors;
• * Augmenting international cooperation and assistance support for States Parties, in the form of expanded training and capacity-building facilities; and
• * Obtaining business continuity capabilities for the OPCW Headquarters.

These objectives should be achieved through adherence to the following general principles defined in the Programme of Requirements:

• * Supports the work activities of the users;
• * Is a safe, effective, flexible, and functional facility;
• * Is secure;
• * Is a future-proof facility;
• * Provides an attractive working environment;
• * Is appropriately hospitable for guests;
• * Is energy neutral; and
• * Has low running costs.

The scope of the project primarily consists of the construction of the new ChemTech Centre, which will provide enhanced and enlarged facilities for the Laboratory, Equipment Store, and training, as well as the land and infrastructure required to accommodate and operate the building.

The Project has a total budget of €33.5M that is exclusively funded by voluntary contributions to the ChemTech Centre Trust Fund. Till today (May 2020), approximately 90% of the estimated budget has been pledged or provided by the States Parties. More information can be found on: https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/featured-topics/chemtech-centre.

3 Plot location

In December 2019, the OPCW finalised the acquisition of a piece of land in the Heron Business Park within the Municipality of Pijnacker-Nootdorp. This is approximately 12 km away from The Hague.