Los Alamos Lab Contract Is Sought by Northrop

Northrop Grumman Corp. said Monday that it would bid against rival Lockheed Martin Corp. for the contract to run a lab that helps maintain the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons.

An award from the Energy Department to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could generate up to $60 million a year in management fees, the government said.

The laboratory has an annual operating budget of $2.2 billion.

The department is holding the first-ever competition for the contract to run Los Alamos after work at the lab was halted last July after two computer disks with classified information were reported missing. It was later learned the disks had never been created. The University of California has run Los Alamos since 1943, when the U.S. asked the school to help build the world’s first atomic bomb.

Century City-based Northrop is the only builder of nuclear- powered aircraft carriers for the Navy. It manages the Missile Defense Agency’s Joint National Integration Center and the Joint Forces Command’s Cyber Warfare Integration Network.

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed runs the Sandia National Laboratories in California and New Mexico, which also help maintain U.S. nuclear weapons.

Shares of Northrop rose 35 cents to $54.32 and Lockheed closed up 95 cents at $59.75. Both are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.