The SCOOP play otherwise called the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province play is principally located in the state’s Anadarko Basin. The SCOOP play is generally located in Garvin, Stephens, Murray, and Carter counties.
The STACK play is located in the Anadarko Basin area of Oklahoma. STACK is derived from “Sooner Trend (oil field), Anadarko (basin), Canadian and Kingfisher (counties).” The majority of the play is located across (Canadian and Kingfisher as the core counties) and Dewey, Blaine, Major, Garfield counties. Unlike other Plays such as the Eagle Ford, Bakken, Granite Wash, the STACK is not a geological formation, but a geographic area.
You may also read about the MERGE play. The MERGE is the area between the SCOOP and STACK plays and generally covers Caddo Cato, Grady, and McClain counties.
Geoology
Taking a step back, the SCOOP and STACK plays are located in the Anadarko Basin. The Anadarko Basin is a large geologic depositional and structural basin located in Western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle and all the way up into parts of Southwestern Kansas and extreme Southeastern Colorado. It is around 70,000 square miles in area. Sedimentary rocks from the Cambrian period (in the Paleozoic Era) around 540-485 million years ago through Permian age (around 300-250 million years ago) make up the basin.
STACK Play
Talking about the STACK play first, it is also aptly named since there are multiple stacked formations that are being targeted by operators. This allows an operator to target multiple formations from a single location. The core area of the STACK is around 1,000 square miles in area so makes up a small portion of the overall Anadarko Basin but is the focus of a large part of the activity in the basin.
STACK play was first drilled by Newfield Exploration in 2011. and two of the main producing reservoirs include the Mississippian Meramec and Osage formations as well as several other potential targets including the Morrow, Oswego, and Red Fork.
SCOOP Play
SCOOP play mainly targets the Devonian to Mississippian aged Woodford Shale. The Woodford Shale is a silica and highly organic rich black shale that was deposited about 320 million to 370 million years ago.
The Woodford shale is seen as the major source rock for certain plays in the basin as it provides hydrocarbons to the Hunton group, Viola group, Simpson group, and the Arbuckle group. Similar to other unconventional oil and gas plays, this source rock formation is now the target of horizontal drilling activity.
STACK play was first drilled by Newfield Exploration in 2011. and two of the main producing reservoirs include the Mississippian Meramec and Osage formations as well as several other potential targets including the Morrow, Oswego, and Red Fork.