Why can't we keep Scottish oil?

[pharmachameleon]

I'll start off by saying I am against Scottish independence on economic grounds. Voted no in 2014 and haven't changed my mind. However I was out with a friend at the weekend who is for Scottish independence and I didn't really have the answers to the discussions we had.
We were talking specifically about oil (we did have fun really-this was the only serious topic we discussed!) He said in 2014 one of the big arguments from the unionist side was 'THERE IS NO OIL LEFT' however now with the new oil contact granted in Rosebank this argument has been disproved.
Can I play devil's advocate and ask why can't Scotland keep the revenues from oil drilled off Scottish waters? I realise these waters are UK waters however why can't they be Scottish? Ignoring the net zero targets of course!
I realise this question makes me sound like an idiot so I'd never ask it in real life-only on anonymous Mumsnet! Can anyone help me understand?

Because you didn’t vote for independence 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 As far as I am understand it these are Scottish waters except when there is oil to be had.

Does Scotland keep the revenue for anything else produced in Scotland? I'm not sure we do under the current system.
So that would need a change to the whole system, not just oil

Scotland does not have an Exclusive Economic Zone (the maritime zone over which a state can claim authority for economic exploitation) as Scotland is not an independent state. Effectively there is no such thing (legally speaking) as 'Scottish waters'. So the tax revenues from the offshore industry go straight to the UK treasury, just like any other corporation tax. The Scottish government has only extremely limited tax raising powers and these do not extend to corporation tax.

If you want tax revenues from companies operating in Scotland and any future Scottish EEZ to stay in Scotland then you need to vote yes in the next independence referendum.

Thanks all. My worry would be even if we were able to keep the revenue from oil in Scotland, it's a fossil fuel so isn't going to keep us going for long!
This page explains things well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27sScotland%27ss_oil

The revenue from oil isn’t great. As levels of oil in the North Sea have fallen it becomes more and more expensive for the oil companies to extract that oil, their profits are lower so what they are willing to pay for extraction licences has fallen.

The rights to extract it were sold off to privatised companies. We don't own it.

Same reason Scotland doesn’t keep all the whisky it produces - the companies that extract get a better price on the international markets. An independent Scotland could just decide to lay claim to what now belongs to private companies but the state appropriating private assets would be a sure fire way to destroy any chance of businesses investing in Scotland. Or they could close the borders like North Korea….

@mibbelucieachwell @SaffronSpice It's obvious that the OP is talking about tax revenues 🙄

Yousaf doesn't want Rosebank to go ahead so there wouldn't be any tax revenues. He said: “I think Rosebank is the wrong decision. Scotland’s future, the North-east’s future, is as the net zero capital not just of Europe, but of I hope the world.
“New oil and gas licences being given the go ahead will slow the pace of that transition. I want to accelerate that transition and take the workers with us.”

Also the people against Rosebank are arguing there will be negative tax revenues .

Maybe the tax revenue is the wrong angle to be arguing?

Aberdeen to become the NetZero capital by destroying all NE industry?

@Greenthrow interesting. So oil tax revenue shouldn't be considered when Scottish independence is being debated. Why is it always brought up though?

North sea oil is not just an asset to the government is is also a future liability. The latest estimate I saw for the cost of decommissioning the platforms is £32-36 billion; some paid for by the oil companies but over half by the government https://raeng.org.uk/media/b0ebnlfo/raeng_offshore_decommissioning_report.pdf (Royal Academy of Engineering report).

@MoleAtTheCounter wow!

It’s like decommissioning old nuclear power plants such as Torness. I’m sure that isn’t cheap either

Quite easy to forget all the money Westminster sends north of the border when discussing things like this - one of the main pitfalls of independence!

Because the grievance junkies are desperate to find any cause they can jump on to declare how much the English have stolen from Scots. This is stoked by the SNP etc to keep folk voting for them.

It could have been considered an asset for independence 20/30 years ago, not now. The main (justified) gripe is that UK government (different parties all did the same) have essentially pissed all this revenue from the oil industry up the wall and have little to show for it. The oil industry was treated like a cash cow.

Compare this with Norway where the wealth is been properly managed & there is a long term strategy which will benefit the Norwegians.

Because it's needed to balance the books of the UK .

Because countries don’t own the drilling rights, companies do. They bought the rights, they take on the risk of extraction, they get the profits.

Madness! Do you not think if this was the case the SNP would be shouting it at the top if their voices??? Do you not think I’d there were any financial independent future forecast that didn’t involve an exceedingly sharp decline in our living standards the SNP would be trumpeting it as loud as possible.

Independence can be had, but at an eye watering my high price. I really wish the SNP would be honest about this, let us all make our judgement as to whether that’s a price we want to pay and move on.

I can’t understand why shipping refined oil from Saudi (using minimum pay Asian workers to run the wells) probably to Rotterdam (and then driven to the U.K where we buy it) is good but us drilling Scottish oil using ,presumably, some U.K. engineers, some british helicopter pilots and airports, some U.K. ship workers, cooks,cleaners etc - who then pay tax on their earnings into the U.K. HMRC is bad -please explain someone.

Because if oil is more abundant in Saudi it’s much, much cheaper to extract.

Why isn't all the electricity produced by wind farms sold to Scottish consumers at just above cost price with a small amount added for profit and investment? Clean, green, cheap energy should be available close to where it's produced.

This is correct Scotland has no EEZ. If Scotland were to become independent then I'd think it could claim the oil revenue but they would also be claiming a share in overall UK debt which would wipe out any oil advantages, as Scotland was part of UK when the debts were run up.

It's wasn't my comment. David Cameron or Alistair Darling made that statement on television.