The SDC makes 600 mile journey to McCovey prospect in 12 days

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

The SDC — short for steel drilling caisson — that will be used to drill the McCovey prospect later this year has been readied for drilling and towed to the EnCana Corp.’s drilling location in the central Beaufort Sea, Soren Christiansen, EnCana’s drilling manager, told PNA July 30.

The SDC, built for the Arctic by Canadian Marine Ltd. in 1982 using an old tanker as a shell, was towed by two class 4 ice breakers, the Kigoria (18,0000 horsepower) and the Kalvik (24,000 horsepower).

The 600-mile tow, completed early on the morning of July 26, was expected to take 15 days but took only 12 days, Christiansen said.

Fairweather E&P Services, which is handling operations for EnCana at McCovey, was in charge of the tow and the refurbishment of the drillship.

The SDC has been stacked for 10 years at Port Clarence offshore from Teller on the Seward Peninsula. It was last used on ARCO Alaska Inc.’s Cabot project in the Beaufort in 1991.

A Native liaison and Native observers were aboard the SDC for the entire towing period of 12 days, which ended early on the morning of July 26.

Currently, Crowley is transporting supplies to the drillship from West Dock at Prudhoe Bay in preparation for winter drilling.

The SDC will be placed in a cold stack “go quiet” mode by Aug. 15 for the bowhead whaling season.

Drilling operations will probably begin “sometime in November … when the ice has reached a designated thickness,” EnCana officials told PNA.

The McCovey unit includes three federal and four state of Alaska leases in the Beaufort Sea about five miles northeast of Reindeer Island and 12 miles east of the Northstar field.

A single exploration well, the McCovey No. 1, will be drilled from a surface location in federal OCS lease block Y-1577 to a bottom hole location to the northwest in OCS lease block Y-1578. The well is expected to have a measured depth of 14,400 feet and a true vertical depth of 13,000 feet.

Phillips Alaska Inc. and Chevron are partners in the EnCana-operated unit.