EnCana plugs, abandons McCovey

Kay Cashman, PNA publisher and managing editor

EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) notified the U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Feb. 2 that it was plugging and abandoning the well bore at McCovey No. 1. Calgary-based EnCana, operator of the Beaufort Sea unit, spud the well Dec. 6.

The well was drilled from a drillship, the SDC, which stands for steel drilling caisson. EnCana, ConocoPhillips Alaska and ChevronTexaco are equal partners in the McCovey unit, which consists of three federal and four state of Alaska leases about five miles northeast of Reindeer Island, 12 miles due east of the Northstar field and 12.5 miles northeast of West Dock at Prudhoe Bay.

Although a sidetrack was included in EnCana’s first exploration plan for McCovey, the well was not sidetracked.

MMS said Feb. 12 that the well was plugged and abandoned on Feb. 6.

MMS officials also said the agency has not yet received a plan of exploration for next season, which an agency official had told Petroleum News Alaska Jan. 22 was expected “any day.”

The news of a second exploration plan came at a time when McCovey was being drilled, leading industry observers to believe drilling results looked good. But pre-application permitting meetings for a second well at McCovey for the 2003/2004 drilling season began this past fall. State records also show that a second plan of exploration was due by June 30 in order to hold the unit. (The first plan of exploration was filed Jan. 25, 2002.)

“We have no indication of whether or not a second plan of exploration is still coming,” MMS spokesman Robin Cacy told PNA Feb. 12. She said federal regs require the unit operator to either commence a new drilling program or file an extension of the suspension of operation (granted in April of last year) with MMS within 180 days of the plug and abandon date of Feb. 9.

In the Oct. 24 Beaufort Sea state areawide oil and gas lease sale the three McCovey partners formed a bidding group that took five leases adjacent to the McCovey unit on the south, 12,160 acres, at prices ranging from $11.29 to $28.75 an acre. An EnCana and Chevron bidding group also took three tracts (7,680 acres) to the southwest of McCovey, paying $42.69 an acre for one tract and $11.29 an acre for the other two.