76--Intent to Award

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a requirement for a sole source Purchase Order with CPM Group LLC for one year of precious metals advisory services. The period of performance of the resulting award will be 9/16/2026 through 9/15/2027. The U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodities Section of the National Minerals Information Center requests a 1-year subscription for 5 users to a monthly precious metals reports and reports for 5 users to the gold, silver, platinum-group metals, precious metals, copper, niobium, and tantalum supply chain for the North American marketplace. The subscription helps mineral commodity specialists gather valuable information, enhancing their expertise in their role as the principal USGS contact point for the mineral commodities to which they are assigned, and in reporting on important industry developments through monthly, quarterly, and annual USGS publications. Therefore, it intends to make a direct award to CPM Group LLC, on a sole source basis under the authority of FAR Overhaul (RFO) 12.102(a). This is not a request for competitive quotations or proposals but rather an intent to sole source notification. Questions or concerns may be addressed to the Contract Specialist, Jonathan Wyatt jonathan_wyatt@ios.doi.gov no later than 8/26/2026 The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) considers employee signatures to be Personal Protected Information, and therefore all employee signatures have been redacted. By posting this document, the Contracting Officer attests all appropriate signatures have been obtained. 1. Contracting Agency and Activity The Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Reston Acquisitions Branch, Reston, VA. 2. Nature of Action Being Approved. For award of a non-competitive firm fixed price purchase order for reports from CPM Group. The period of performance is 09/16/2026 to 09/15/2027. 3. Description of Supplies or Services. Required by the Mineral Commodity Specialists in the Mineral Commodities Section and the Minerals Intelligence Research Section of the National Minerals Information Center (NMIC) requires a 1-year subscription for reports on copper, gold, silver, platinum group metals, precious metals, tantalum, niobium, base metals, hafnium, iridium, cesium, and scandium. 4. Statutory Authority The proposed action may be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority of Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) 12.102(a). 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Citation in No. 5. CPM Group provides unique features to meet the Governments minimum needs, such as comprehensive yearbooks on gold, silver, and platinum-group metals as well as outlook reports on cesium, copper, hafnium, iridium, niobium, precious metals, scandium, and tantalum in the United States and globally. CPM Group provides coverage of events and activities that are related to metal mining, extraction, development, production of refined metal, trade, technology, governmental issues and recycling. Notably, the information provided on these critical and precious metals is not found elsewhere. CPM Groups offering contains information on the listed metals that is not available from others doing similar work. Although there are several vendors who provide this type of information, many of them specialize in certain metals but do not have coverage for several of the listed metals, or their offerings do not include vital information. The information enhances mineral commodity specialistsż and NMIC economists an understanding of issues and activities in the respective industries and is regularly used in USGS publications. 6. The Efforts to Identify Additional Sources Including the Market Research Conducted. Through working in minerals information regularly and for a long period of time, requestor is familiar with other potential sources. Those sources do not provide the unique combination of breadth and scope of developments in the precious metals industry in the United States and globally that CPM Group reports provide. A pre-solicitation notice was posted without response. In addition to the pre-solicitation notice, the employees who use the reports produced by CPM Group regularly conduct internet searches for potential vendors and are often sent information soliciting business by potential providers. Evaluations of similar products showed that other vendors do not provide coverage of some of the metals for which information is needed. This market research concluded that no other potential vendor could provide the required services. 7. Future Plans to Permit Competition. Future requirements will undergo market research and be competed to the maximum extent practical