The Contractor would be required to furnish the necessary personnel, material, equipment, services, and facilities to supply liquid helium in 30, 60, 100, and 250 liter Contractor-owned dewars. Dewar size indicates product capacity of the dewar. The total quantity of liquid helium required is estimated at 100,000 liters per year for each of the five years if the options are exercised. Purity of the liquid helium shall be a minimum of
99.998%. Demurrge charges shall be paid in accordance with the timelines and rates negotiated.

In accordance with FAR 52.208-8 Required Sources for Helium and Helium Usage Data:
Contractors must purchase major helium requirements from Federal helium suppliers, to the extent that supplies are available. "Federal helium supplier" means a private helium vendor that has an in-kind crude helium sales contract with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and that is on the BLM Amarillo Field Office's Authorized List of Federal Helium Suppliers available via the Internet at http://blm.gov/8pjd.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large, foreign, and small businesses. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 325120 Industrial Gas Manufacturing, as those domestic sources having 1,000 employees or less. Please include your company's size classification in any response to this notice.

The Small Business Administration has waived the non-manufacturer for this NAICS code. The prime contractor must be a small business in accordance with the NAICS code, however, the small business does not have to provide the product of a small business manufacturer.

Companies that can perform all of the above requirements are requested to email a detailed report describing their abilities to [email protected] no later than the response date for this sources sought notice.

After the results of this market research are obtained and analyzed and specifications are developed for this requirement, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. If at least two qualified small businesses are identified during this market research stage, then any competitive procurement that resulted would be conducted as a small business set-aside.

The report must explain all capabilities, including the capability to provide the required helium product and dewars, and any other information relevant to your products and/or capabilities. Also, the following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice:

1. Name and business size of the company proposing to perform the work;

2. If subcontractors or distributors would be utilized, the name of company(ies), and a point of contact for the company (name, phone number, fax number and email address);

3. Indication of number of days, after receipt of order that is typical for delivery of in-house and specialty gases;

4. Indication of whether any products and/or services are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule contracts and, if so, the GSA FSS contract number(s);

5. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.

All documentation must be sent to Carol A. Wood, Contract Specialist, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 1640, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-1640. E-mail address: [email protected].