Phillips submits McCovey plan

Kristen Nelson

Phillips Alaska Inc. submitted an exploration plan and oil spill contingency plan for the McCovey prospect in the Beaufort Sea to the U.S. Minerals Management Service Sept. 22. A 13,000 foot true vertical depth, 14,400 foot measured depth directional well is planned, with both surface and bottomhole locations in OCS block 6515.

Phillips said the 1 Phillips McCovey drilling location is approximately 12.5 miles northeast of West Dock and seven miles northwest of Cross Island. Construction of an ice island and ice road is scheduled to begin in December once the sea ice is thick enough to support light weight ice road construction equipment.

Phillips said it expects to spud the well shortly after completion of the ice island, probably late February, with drilling expected to take approximately 40 days to reach total depth. If drilling results are encouraging, Phillips said it may elect to flow test the well.

Phillips said it is working with Nabors Alaska Drilling Inc. to use Nabors rig 14E. Should rig 14E become unavailable, Nabors rig 16E could be used. Nabors 14E is currently stacked in Deadhorse and Nabors 16E is drilling development wells for Phillips at Kuparuk. Phillips said Nabors 14E was last used for drilling the BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. Liberty prospect and has been cold stacked at Point Thomson.

A 12.5 mile ice road will be built from West Dock to the drilling site. Phillips estimates an hour travel time on the ice road from West Dock to the ice island drill site. During drilling, personnel will be housed on the rig camp located at either West Dock or on an ice pad at Reindeer Island, a 4.8 mile ice road from the drilling site. Phillips said it may pre-stage materials on Reindeer Island prior to freeze-up using a barge.