Its a finite resource of course, but there are as many years of production ahead of us than behind us. Actually Westminster's Oil and Gas Industrial Strategy confirmed this year that,
“According to Oil & Gas UK’s Activity Survey, the reality is that the UK will continue to supply oil and gas well beyond 2055.”
The drilling techniques of the 1970s were limited by their simplicity. They bored vertically into large pockets. My dad was the engineer on the large BP Magnus fields which were subsequently considered "not economic" and sold to high-tech Texan companies.
They have developed techniques which are so sophisticated and directional that its analogous to "threading a piece of spaghetti from the top of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh, down to the borough of Leith and through someone's letterbox" - according to their engineers.
There are many small countries who are successful without such rich resources, but the fact is we have them, so should make the most of them.
We're the only oil producing country in the world who don't have a mechanism for accumulating some revenue for the benefit of the nation. For example, Norway set up a “sovereign wealth fund”, and since 1996 they invested proceeds from its oil revenues to a fund so that future generations can benefit. That fund is now worth £450 billion – far more than the Norwegian government’s debt.
2. Are there any services that Scotland would have to introduce upon getting independence that it doesn't currently have to pay for?
Yes, of course.
Some new Scottish departments would be required – a Treasury, a Ministry for Defence, and a Foreign Office. We do, as taxpayers, already contribute our fair share to the funding of these services. Its scare tactics to suggest that the cost of this is astronomical or somehow beyond our reach. I'm not sure anyone could argue that the squanderous sums spent taking us into illegal wars are less expensive than setting up departments for a small country with no illusions of imperialism.
It of course means that there will be an injection of senior positions - with their associated salaries - into the Scottish marketplace instead of being concentrated in London and the South East, which will do the economy no harm at all.
Not all Civil Service departments which administer affairs in Scotland are based in the south. So some organisations will transfer their Scottish based operations to the management of the Scottish Government.
The NHS and Police - the largest of any of these services - are already run from Scotland and would require comparatively little change.
And them we have the DVLA (*facepalm*). A well worn worry thrown as if it were a killer dice-roll in a role playing game.
Well - just maybe - it could be spun into a private company by the current Westminster incumbents, and could process licences in Scotland for a fee.
There's a solution Mr Cameron would doubtless like.
