Published date: 9 October 2018

This notice was replaced on 18 December 2018

This notice does not contain the most up-to-date information about this procurement. The most recent notice is:

Awarded contract (published 9 November 2020)

Closed future opportunity - This means that a potential contract has passed its approach to market date. A buyer can choose to consider any supplier interest or convert this notice into an opportunity ready for live procurement.


Contract summary

Industry

  • Laboratory services - 71900000

Location of contract

North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, South West, Scotland, Wales

Value of contract

£0

Procurement reference

CA18/2/1/16

Published date

9 October 2018

Approach to market date

14 November 2018

Contract start date

1 June 2019

Contract end date

31 May 2023

Procedure type

Open procedure (above threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements above the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No

Description

This requirement will be for providing UKAS accredited laboratory analysis on a wide variety of water samples (e.g. mine waters, groundwaters, surface waters and sea waters etc.), in addition to solid matrix samples (e.g. ochre, mine tailings, sediments, soils etc.) for a range of inorganic analytes and metals.

More specialized analyses may also be required periodically, including but not limited to, gas analysis, particle size distribution, NORM concentrations, in addition to routine Environmental Health testing e.g. Legionella testing and Faecal Coliform analysis etc.
A typical number of 500 samples are submitted for testing each calendar year, but this figure is expected to grow over the life of the contract.

The samples will be collected by either the Coal Authority, or an organization nominated by the Coal Authority, for which the successful laboratory will be required to arrange for sample collection, as well as delivery of sample bottles to an agreed list of locations.

Please note, due to the unstable nature of mine water, we require the ability to acidify all water samples in the field - acidification upon receipt to the laboratory is not acceptable.

Samples for analysis are collected from a wide range of sites across England, Scotland and Wales; however the main focus of the sampling regimes are in the UK Coalfields (South Wales, West and East Midlands, North West England, Yorkshire, North East England, Central Belt of Scotland) and Ore Fields (SW England, Shropshire, Mid Wales, North Wales, Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines, Lake District, Cleveland, Southern Uplands) across the country.

A variety of analytical techniques will be required to fulfil the range of LOD's required for our databases. For metal mine waters, the key metals include zinc, lead and cadmium, where LOD's in the order of 1-2µg/L (or 0.1µg/L in the case of cadmium) are required.

For coal mines, key anlaytes include total, dissolved and ferrous iron to a LOD of 0.1mg/L, in addition to total alkalinity, total and cold acidity, suspended solids, sulphate (LOD 3mg/L) and chloride (LOD 1mg/L). Please note the composition of coal mine waters are highly variable, with iron concentrations ranging between 150mg/L, chloride ranging between 20,000mg/L and sulphate ranging from 3000mg/L.

For solid samples, similar detection limits as above will apply for key determinands and provision should be made for use of techniques include ICP (MS/OES), XRF and XRD analyses.

Many samples are collected from mine water treatment schemes, where we hold permits issued by the environmental regulators to discharge treated water. Part of this contract will therefore include provision to report early warnings against a list of trigger values where there is a risk that our permitted concentrations are being exceeded.

More information

Spend profile

This table displays the spend profile of the notice
Financial year Budget
2019/2020 £25,000
2020/2021 £25,000
2021/2022 £25,000
2022/2023 £25,000

Attachments

About the buyer

Contact name

Peter Kobryn

Address

200 Lichfield Lane
MANSFIELD
NG184RG
England

Telephone

07826 874541

Email

peterkobryn@coal.gov.uk