V--Research Vessel

The US Geological Survey intends to award a noncompetitive contract to, The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Inc. for the charter of a research vessel, The R/V Marcus Langseth for two missions to survey the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea during the tentative dates of June 4, 2011 to June 26, 2011 and August 8, 2011 to September 3, 2011. Any questions may be addressed to the Contracting Officer by email ([email protected]). Request for Proposal G11PS00245 will be made available to Columbia University on or about May 16, 2011.The USGS is chartering a vessel which is part of a fleet of Federally-owned global class vessels operated through a Federal and university consortium known as the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS). Many of the fleets assets are owned by the Navy, NOAA, and U.S. Coast Guard and operated by universities through cooperative agreements between the Federal owner and the competitively selected university. The vessel to be chartered represents a unique asset in the U.S. research fleet. The R/V Marcus Langseth is the only vessel in the fleet with the capability to acquire long-offset multichannel seismic reflection profile data, necessary to characterize the geology of the seafloor. No other data acquisition system is suitable or acceptable for this mission.This is not a request for competitive proposals. Firms believing that they can provide these services are encouraged to identify themselves and give written notification to the Contracting Officer. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement which shall be considered by the agency by May 23, 2011. Determination by the Government not to compete this action based on responses to this notice is solely with the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining to conduct a competitive procurement. The NAICS code is 483112.