Northern Bleached Hardwood Kraft Pulp

SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE

Document Type: Sources Sought Notice

Notice Number: NIST-MML-26-SS03

Title: Northern Bleached Hardwood Kraft Pulp

NAICS Code: 322110. Pulp Mills

Contracting Office Address

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),

Acquisition Management Division,

100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 1640,

Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-1640

This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY.  Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response. 

This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for conducting a follow-on acquisition.  NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice, or otherwise pay for the information requested.  No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of submission of responses to this Notice and NIST use of such information.  NIST recognizes that proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary data and present it as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information.  In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper.

NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME.

Requirement:

NIST is seeking information on contractors who can potentially provide the following:

• Approximately 15 air dried metric tons (ADMT) of Northern Bleached Hardwood Kraft (NBHK) pulp bales with minimum specifications of 87 ISO brightness, 0.7 mm average fiber length, and an air-dry content of 90%.
• Furthermore, pulp bales from a mix of predominantly hardwood tree origin and contain less than 10% softwood species.
• Pulp bales wrapped appropriately with pulp sheets and wire wraps, or a suitable alternative to protect the pulp during transit and storage.

Interested parties shall describe the capabilities of their organization as it relates to the product described above.  NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Quotation in the third quarter of FY26 and awarding a contract no later than the fourth quarter of FY26.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses. The small business size standard associated with the NAICS code for this effort, 333310 Pulp Mills; size standard 1,050 employees.  Please include your company’s size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. 

After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract.  Companies that can provide such products are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to donald.graham@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice.

The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice:

1. Name, Address, UEID, CAGE code, and point of contact information of your company.
2. Any information on the company’s small business certifications, if applicable.
3. Description of your company’s capabilities as they relate to the product described in this notice.
4. A description of your company’s previous experience providing the product described in this notice.
5. Indication of whether the product described in this notice are currently offered via your company’s GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts, Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), or other existing Government-wide contract vehicles; and, if so, the contract number(s) for those vehicles.
6. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.
7. Location of manufacture

Responses are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format.  Pages shall be 8½-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font.  Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.