Clearance Calculations

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Objectives

The student will be able to

- describe the three types of clearance calculation
- find the BHI Anti-Collision Policy on Tech Pubs
- explain the reason for calculating a Separation Factor
- demonstrate the use of Anti-collision Rules in WA
- produce and interpret clearance reports

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Clearance Calculations

• Clearance calculations are calculations that indicate, using

various measures, how far away one wellbore is from another

• There are three basic types, which differ only in the plane of
calculation
– Closest approach (sometimes called minimum distance)
– Horizontal plane
– Travelling cylinder (sometimes called normal clearance)

• Of these closest approach is by far the most common

• Horizontal plane calculations are rarely required

• Travelling cylinder is a big part of BP’s procedures

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Clearance Calculations

• Regardless of the type of calculation, there is some common

terminology used

• The wellpath being measured from is called the reference

• The wellpath being measured to is called the offset

• When doing a clearance calculation there is always one, and only

one, reference wellpath

• There is always at least one offset wellpath, but often there are
multiple offset wellpaths

• Let’s consider the simplest calculation for each of the three

types, a calculation from the centre of the reference wellpath to
the centre of the offset wellpath

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Closest Approach

Reference Offset

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Closest Approach

• Start by specifying the reference and offset wellpaths

• Specify the MD(s) on the reference wellpath for which the

calculation is to be done

• When the closest approach calculation is run, for each MD on

the reference wellpath the software identifies the point on the
offset wellpath that comes closest to this MD, and reports the
distance and direction to that point

• The direction can be reported referenced either to N or to the

highside of the reference wellbore

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Closest Approach

Reference CA distance
Offset

CA distance

CA distance

CA distance

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Closest Approach
• The CA distance and direction is dependent on the relative
trajectories of the two wellpaths

Offset

Reference CA distance

CA distance

tance
CA dis nc
e
a
st
di
CA

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Closest Approach

• Note that the direction to the closest point on the offset is likely
to lie in a different plane for each MD

• This means that there is no one single plane that all these
directions can be projected onto which will preserve their true
lengths

• This means there is no such thing as a closest approach

clearance plot, only a report

• If a clearance calculation is to be done, and the type of

calculation is not specified, it will typically be a closest
approach calculation that is wanted

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Horizontal Plane Clearance Calculation

• Is very similar to the closest approach method, but this time the
software measures the distance to the offset wellpath along the
horizontal plane

• So this calculation is effectively a TVD slice at specified MD(s)

on the reference wellpath

• It is rarely required or asked for, but may be useful in specific

circumstances

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Horizontal Plane Clearance Calculation

Offset

Reference HP distance

HP distance

HP distance

HP distance

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Travelling Cylinder Clearance Calculation

• Is very similar to the closest approach method, but this time the
software measures the distance to the offset wellpath along a plane
perpendicular (or normal) to the reference wellpath

• This means that a travelling cylinder clearance plot can be created,

the plane of projection being that which is always perpendicular to
the reference wellpath

• To be useful the travelling cylinder plot should be annotated with

MD intervals (MD on the reference wellpath)

• As with the TC clearance report, the TC plot can be oriented with

respect to either N or to the highside of the reference wellpath

• It is typically a required calculation when working for BP, but may be

used (and useful) in other situations, both in the office and at the
wellsite

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Travelling Cylinder Clearance Calculation

Offset

TC distance
Reference

ce
ta n
dis
TC

ce
tan
di s
TC
© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Clearance Calculations

• Closest approach calculations will always return an answer

• Horizontal plane and travelling cylinder calculations may not

return an answer if the offset lies at an orientation which is not
intersected by the plane of calculation

• For this reason it is always advisable to run closest approach

calculations in addition to either of the other two

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Centre-to-centre Clearance Calculations
• All the previous clearance calculations were discussed in terms
of measuring from the centre of the reference wellpath to the
centre of the offset wellpath along the appropriate plane

• Some of our customers want us to include the dimensions of

the open hole (on the reference) and the casing (on the offset)

• This means that hole and casing dimensions should be entered

appropriately in WA (at least on the reference)

• The software will then do the standard centre-to-centre

calculation and amend the reported distances by subtracting off
the open hole and the cased hole radii

• This calculation is referred to as “centre-to-centre with hole and

casing” (C-C w/HnC)

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Centre-to-centre Clearance Calculations

Casing

Offset
Reference

C-C distance

C-C distance w/ HnC

C-C distance w/ HnC

Open hole

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Edge-to-edge Clearance Calculations
• If ellipses are included in the clearance calculation, then the
software will generate the ellipses of uncertainty surrounding
the appropriate points on the reference and offset, and then
calculate the distance which is referred to as the “ellipse edge-
to-edge” distance
• This is generally thought of as being the distance from the edge
of one ellipse to the edge of the other ellipse

Offset

Reference

ce
C-C distan
e
E-E distanc

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Edge-to-edge Clearance Calculations

• To be more precise, the software actually generates another
curve (called a pedal curve) surrounding each ellipse, and then
reports the distance from one pedal curve to the other along the
line of interest (centre-to-centre)

• http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PedalCurve.html

• So pedal curve separation (reported as “Ellipse Separation”) will

always be equal to or smaller than the “real” edge-to-edge ellipse
separation

ance
C-C dist
ce
E-E distan

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Edge-to-edge Clearance Calculations

• One result of this is that what may look like non-intersecting

ellipsoids in the 3D Viewer might (correctly) give a negative (i.e.
“overlapping”) value for Ellipse Separation in a WA report

Same ellipses, further apart

Pedal curve length
equals ellipse radius

Pedal curves don’t overlap

Pedal curves now overlap

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Collision Avoidance Policy

• So, we can calculate the “centre-to-centre distance” (with or
without HnC) and we can calculate the “ellipse edge-to-edge”
distance

• Both of these numbers are useful pieces of information which

tell us something about the proximity of the offset from the
reference

• But what exactly? And how does it determine our immediate

future actions while we’re drilling the hole?

• It could be argued that it is almost pointless doing these

calculations unless it’s related to some sort of procedure which
is determined by the result

• INTEQ has a collision avoidance policy – see TechPubs

• The customer should have some sort of anti-collision policy

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Anti-collision Policy and Separation Factor

• If they don’t, or if we deem it unacceptable, or if they have one but

don’t apply it in practice, then we should either
– persuade them to use their own policy (if we deem it acceptable), or
– implement ours

• This should all be part of the well-planning process in town, and

should be done in consultation with the client

• A common way of tying in clearance calculation results with an

anti-collision policy is via the use of some sort of ratio calculation

• This can be variously referred to as a Separation Factor, a

Clearance Factor, a Safety Factor, etc

• Different companies have different ways of calculating this ratio

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Anti-collision Policy and Separation Factor

• As an example, the default INTEQ way of calculating the

Separation Factor is to calculate the ratio of the centre-to-
centre distance to the uncertainty i.e.

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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Anti-collision Policy and Separation Factor
• Once the Separation Factor (ratio calculation) has been done, then
this value can be associated with a particular course of action

• E.g. If SF < 1.0, then stop drilling and inform client and coordinator

If 1.0 < SF < 1.5, then continue to monitor the situation

performing clearance calculations and surveying
appropriately

Etc.

• Anyone involved in this would need to refer to the particular anti-

collision procedure being applied for any specific job

• We have a couple of customers who do all of the above, but take it

a step further by using this information to calculate a probability of
intersection

• INTEQ don’t currently do this, but it will be implemented in a future

version of WA

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

WA and Clearance Calculations

• It should be apparent that when it comes to clearance
calculations there are many ways, each with different options,
in which the calculation can be done

• Historically this has sometimes caused confusion, particularly

when different parties are attempting to do the same
calculation to come up with the same answer

• There is a mechanism in WA which makes this process easier

to apply

• Effectively the specific type of calculation, including the

desired options, are all initially defined in an Anti-Collision Rule
(ACR)

• When the clearance calculation is needing to be done, then the

pre-defined ACR is run

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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ACRs in WA
• If all that is required is a simple centre-to-centre calculation (without
HnC), this can be done in WA without the need for using an ACR

• All other clearance calculations require the application of an ACR

• There are currently 3 types of ACR in WA

– C-type ACR (centre-to-centre calculation)
– E-type ACR (ellipse edge-to-edge calculation)
– R-type ACR (ratio calculation)

• Each of these ACRs has a criterion (aka threshold value or limit)

which defines the value needing to be exceeded if drilling is to
continue

• If the calculation of minimum C-C separation (for a C-type rule) or

ellipse separation distance (for an E-type rule) or ratio (for an R-type
rule) is less than this limit, then the rule has been failed, and this is
indicated explicitly in the clearance report

© 2008 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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