I’m puzzled at all worry of African nations splitting along the lines of resources, I’m pretty sure that is geographically almost exactly what you’ve got with Sudan/south Sudan, there oil revenue was a huge problem with agreeing the bifurcation.

I’d be interested to see how the international law was enforced in that case (I’m genuinely unsure) and whilst I know this isn’t Africa it’s the best precedent I can think of, (unless you count the carving up of Arabia).

As far as EEZs go, feel free to wait on the Chinese/Korean/Japanese (or fishing around Gibraltar) one to look like having some sort of conclusion before debating their impaction in enforceable law.

The problem as far as law goes is historically states don’t separate, and where in they have they imploded first, Sudan, yugoslavia are two examples, peaceful secessionis few and far between, modern examples extend to east and west Pakistan, there in you have no issues of what falls where since there is a large chunk of India separating the two’s borders. Legally the whole thing is uncharted territory.

Actually a fair number of pipelines come ashore in England, not Scotland. Doesn’t matter though as production is measured on the individual installations and taxed according. It has nothing to do with where it lands.

There is Norwegian Production that currently lands in the UK, we don’t get tax revenue for it!

Silly point alert: I can’t help wondering if the agreement that’ll be reached that the yes campaign keeps mentioning will go something like “keep the pound, share the UK military, have a parliament in Edinburgh, keep the Queen as Hos, pay your taxes to Westminster but have limited control over them, oh and have a notionally separate country.”

I see the source of this is an opinion piece in the ft, does anyone know who the author actually is and their background? Their opinion may not be grounded in facts any more than the guff spouted by politicians.

Aren’t the oil fields outside territorial waters and only in the exclusive economic zone? That means it is an agreement rather than simple geography.

there is no defined sea border between England and Scotland!

No they are not in scottish territorial waters, and I’m not sure where this border that has been used to show a divide in scottish/english waters comes from. I think people may have been using what is called the renewable energy zone border beyond the territorial waters border, which I don’t think is correct(“boundary line for application of English and Scottish civil and criminal law to offshore renewable energy installations”)

Actually a fair number of pipelines come ashore in England, not Scotland.

Almost entirely gas though

But oil in Scotland is a dying and shrinking resource?

Yes all the easy oil is gone, its now the resources that were too expensive/difficult to tackle previously that are being targeted, as well as more challenging areas like atlantic frontier and west of shetland. However if you look what happened to chevron’s rosebank, these locations maybe still aren’t economically viable to extract from.

But there is the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea which lays out rules for sea borders and offshore territory, and there’s no reading of those which puts the north sea fields into any question (not so simple for gas)

Well it does, the area of uncertainty covers between those two laws which ‘Scotland’ (as part of the UK and it’s own parliment for the 1999 act)covers several fields, the act signed upto in 1999 (i.e. after the Scotish parliment was set up in 1998) puts the Fife, Argyle, Auk and Clyde fields very definately on the England side of the border. Regardless of the UN’s position (I suspect it would agree with the 1999 act anyway), the Scottish parliment is signed upto it.

No they are not in scottish territorial waters, and I’m not sure where this border that has been used to show a divide in scottish/english waters comes from. I think people may have been using what is called the renewable energy zone border beyond the territorial waters border, which I don’t think is correct.

Did you read the rest of the paragraph?

Scottish Adjacent waters boundary order 1999 (extends north east from Berwick upon Tweed)
Scottish area civil jusistiction order 1987 (extends East from B-uo-T)

dangeourbrain – Member
Silly point alert: I can’t help wondering if the agreement that’ll be reached that the yes campaign keeps mentioning will go something like “keep the pound, share the UK military, have a parliament in Edinburgh, keep the Queen as Hos, pay your taxes to Westminster but have limited control over them, oh and have a notionally separate country.”

so the status quo then?

There’s also the important fact that oil taxes are hugely volitile.

You could go for the Dutch system of fixing taxes over the duration of the opperators licence. Gives stability, but removes flexibility. The UK’s method thus far has been to tax when the oil price is high (eg the 12% windfall tax in 2011), but cut it in periods of low demands, creates a double whammy on HMRC, lower tax rates on low revenue, but does encourage more consistent investment in production, whereas the Dutch method leads to highly cyclical investment and production. Would an independant Scotland, highly dependant on oil revenues be able to control the market in the same way?

The scottish adjacent waters order 1999 doesn’t apply to oil whilst the 87 jurisdiction order does.
http://www.mms.co.uk/MMSKnowledge/email-news.aspx?pageid=76783
This seems to (imo) give a future independent Scotland a strong position to negotiate from with the 99 boundaries as the minimum acceptable

Since the yes campaign is run by moronic, Bravehearted fantasists and the no campaign by fearmongering tittle-tattlers I am no longer paying any attention.

YerNawMaybe.

Just for clarity as someone has already mentioned it above the metering of oil and gas is done on the platform, so it’s irrelevant where you land it.

Decommissioning costs are going to start hitting companies soon, currently there is tax relief on this, under iScotland this would change. It could be a positive one or could be negative, we won’t know.

Decommissioning costs are going to start hitting companies soon

yeah the decommissioning industry is really gearing up now, company I used to work for has now spawned a whole new aberdeen office almost entirely focused on decom, I was really surprised how quickly it had escalated.

This seems to (imo) give a future independent Scotland a strong position to negotiate from with the 99 boundaries as the minimum acceptable

It also seems to be written by one of the braveheart-lite.

Slightly less biassed reporting (the industry likley doesn’t overly care who owns the oil, just as long as it doesn’t stop flowing):
http://www.tcetoday.com/~/media/Documents/TCE/free-features/873oil.pdf

Great thread.
A+
Will read again

One thing worth remembering. Every time there’s a review of existing reserves, the total goes up, not down.
There’s an awful lot more oil out there in northern and west of Shetland areas than we currently exploit. As the price continues to rise on the international markets, investment in marginal fields, previously worked fields, deeper drilling in current areas and moving into harsher new environments will continue. The oil isn’t going to run out within any of our lifetimes. It may instead just get quite expensive… In thirty years time, we’ll probably still be arguing about who can take their sea bed drilling robots out to the deep water Rockall fields.

There is a reason reserves keep going up.

Overstated oil reserves

Salmond struggles with the truth again

The UK govt would never knowingly under estimate how much oil there is would they? 😉

Using the logic of the bloke on radio 4 this morning the UK owes the republic of Ireland a massive amount of cash for coal we’ve mined since Irish independence.

I doubt that UK government ministers are responsible for the oil reserve estimates, I suspect that the figures are the result of geological surveys. Nor do I believe that it would be in the UK government’s interests to release false figures – whether they underestimate or overestimate.

But then of course I’m not desperate to whip up petty nationalism so I guess suggestions of conspiracy theories have little appeal to me.

And can I add a 😉 to show that I don’t necessarily believe what I’m saying and merely making
“a suggestion”

😉

What a load of absolute crap, complete bulshit of the highest order. They live in Scotland, they would come under Scottish law. I live in Germany, and geuss what I am taxed in Germany, the UK is not entitled to tax my German earnings, or entitled to a percentage of my home, car or bikes.

@MSP actually the uk could tax you on your foreign earnings if it wanted to by changing the uk tax laws, that’s exactly what the US does. No matter where in the world you live you have to fill in a US tax return, basically if the taxes there are lower than the US equivalent you have to pay tax to the US government. The only way to opt out is to renounce your US passport but you still have to pay US taxes for a further 10 years

With regard to the oil there are a few possibilities, oil revenue divided by population, by land area or by some other mechanism. Any method has to be agreed, there isn’t a “default” option as Scotland must negotiate its exit. The UK will some things it wants so it will be a genuine negotiation

Find me one case in history, ever, where one country has had a valid claim over the natural resources of another country.

If this principle was correct, then the UK would have claimed a share of Canadian shale oil, Australian uranium, South African gold and diamonds, and New Zealand LOTR revenues.

It also seems to be written by one of the braveheart-lite.

Slightly less biassed reporting (the industry likley doesn’t overly care who owns the oil, just as long as it doesn’t stop flowing):

Don’t just waltz in here with actual unbiased facts, this is politics being discussed!

Only if on temporary assignment, not if you move permanently.

It’s off-topic now but – FATCA.

Find me one case in history, ever, where one country has had a valid claim over the natural resources of another country.

Two things,

1) Scotland is not yet a ‘country’, we’re talking about dividing up existing assets of the UK between a hypothetical Scotland and RUK.
2) Germans took a shine to the coal in Alsace and Loraine, it didn’t end well (kinda like braveheart).

Goodwins Law and it only took 2 pages.

Find me one case in history, ever, where one country has had a valid claim over the natural resources of another country.

@bencooper exactly as @thisisnotaspoon says Scotland isn’t yet a country, it is voting whether to neogtiate it’s exit from the Uk. I suppose you can think of it a bit like when you buy a house, you own the land but not the mineral rights (natural resources) below ground. You buy it on that basis. So the comparison is that Scotland leaves on the basis it doesn’t take the rights to the resources. Now we are not saying this would happen but it could. It’s comparable to the misplaced belief that Scotland is already a member of the EU and as such an independent Scotland would be automatically an EU member.

Ernie the UK govt didn’t think the general public should have access to Mccrones 1974 report on this very issue.

wiki on mccrone report 74

Scotland is not yet a ‘country’, we’re talking about dividing up existing assets of the UK between a hypothetical Scotland and RUK

So how did it work out when the assets of the Empire were divided up? Was there a suggestion that the UK should retain a share of Canada’s coal?

on this very issue

I can’t see any mention in your link which claims that the UK government knowingly underestimated North Sea oil reserves. Deliberately falsifying the estimated oil reserve figures would, I imagine, cause huge problems for any government as it would seriously affect their energy policy – planning and securing future energy requirements is no trivial matter for governments and requires years of advanced planning.

So have you any proof that UK governments knowingly underestimated North Sea oil reserves ? In fact is there any evidence at all that North Sea oil reserves have been underestimated, even if it wasn’t deliberate? I have no knowledge of the accuracy of past estimates.

So how did it work out when the assets of the Empire were divided up? Was there a suggestion that the UK should retain a share of Canada’s coal?

I think we’re back to the argument that Scotland is just a British colony.

At least repeatedly suggesting that it is, but then strongly denying that that is what is being implied.

Present Scotland as if it’s no different to any other colony in the former British Empire, and then deny that you have done so. Why don’t you ?

So Scotland is more than a colony, but less than a country, it’s in some unique inbetween state which allows the rUK to pinch it’s natural resources?

Scotland isn’t anything remotely like a colony. In the same way that England isn’t either.

And the term “country” in the context which it has been used on this thread refers to an independent sovereign state – Scotland isn’t one of those. Nor is England of course.

HTH

Ernie is right, Mccrone found mismanagement in just about every element of the management of north sea oil, except for reserve estimation. Then obviously colluded with the government to hide that, and the true value of north sea oil, in order to deceive scottish voters and influence the result of the referendum. Yay democracy!

So I think you can probably see why people are so quick to doubt UK government claims on oil, they’ve been caught lying before and people think “fool me once…”

Reserves as any fule no are just plain difficult, because it’s hard to take into account improvements in extraction, changes in the economics of extraction, and outright new discoveries. Frinstance, Alma didn’t figure in most reserve estimates until recently. Certainly not the last time that’ll happen.

So there’s a wide range of estimates and people choose the ones that fit their arguments.

Reserves as any fule no are just plain difficult, because it’s hard to take into account improvements in extraction, changes in the economics of extraction, and outright new discoveries.

Which presumably explains why oil reserve estimates aren’t just dependent on geological surveys but also on engineering surveys ?

And I would have thought that companies such as BP need to have a reasonably accurate idea of likely oil reserves before pumping mega bucks into an extraction project, no ?

ernie_lynch – Member

And I would have thought that companies such as BP need to have a reasonably accurate idea of likely oil reserves before pumping mega bucks into an extraction project, no ?

Absolutely right. Which is also why reserve estimates aren’t generally optimistic- they’re making forecasts of minimum required returns on huge investments. Alma frinstance has an official forecast of 20 million barrels with the new development, which is what justifies spending the best part of a billion dollars on it- but a high recovery forecast of 34 million. A massive variation there because one is what they hope they can get, the other is what they’re confident they’ll get. (some mistake this for an average expectation and a high hope, it’s not- it’s a minimum expectation and a high hope, the likely outcome will be somewhere inbetween)

So that’s yet another reason that reserve figures vary so much- when you’re dealing with a single field or project, you want to be pessimistic but when you’re dealing with the whole north sea, you can assume that some of the more optimistic estimates will be proved correct- so the question is, how many, how high?

In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, there are known unknowns…

HTH

Not really – you seem to be trying to contrive a special case which has never existed before in the world ever, where a country splits up but one part retains mineral rights that are in the territory of another part. Lots of countries have split up or had regions declare independence, none of them ever divided mineral resources on anything other than geographic lines.

Remind me again where exactly these particular mineral rights are, ben, and can you provide an example of the split of a country or a declaration of independence involving a similar location of mineral rights?

Not really – you seem to be trying to contrive a special case which has never existed before in the world ever, where a country splits up but one part retains mineral rights that are in the territory of another part.

I’m fairly sure I haven’t done that. Whose posts have you been reading ?

Apologies Ernie and thanks Northwind I stand corrected on the issue of estimating reserves , rather Mccrone and both governments of the day colluded to keep information about the real value of oil from the voters. Dennis Healey said on the wiki page.
“I think we did underplay the value of the oil to the country because of the threat of [Scottish] nationalism… I think they [Westminster politicians] are concerned about Scotland taking the oil, I think they are worried stiff about it.” [9]
Mccrone also referred to” taking the wind out of the SNP sails” in a covering letter he sent to the newly elected labour govt.
Full text of both the letter and the report are available from oilofscotland

I may grow a very long beard while I wait for Ernie to accept there was a deliberate attempt to misinform potential voters,based on McCrone’s own advice when the pros outweighed the cons for indy. THM linked to him as well in the currency thread,including amazon reviews,I suppose once the SNP had got it in the open under a foi McCrone saw an opportunity to make more money,cheeky barsteward.

To use an example of pessimistic estimates on single field revenues and how far off they can be you have to look at Ekofisk, being one of the first oil producing fields in the NS in 1971 it had pretty much dried up in the 90’s with decommissioning being predicted mid 2000. But now they are saying with the investment the Ekofisk complex has seen in the last few years production continuing to at least 2050 and that being a conservative estimate with possibility of production hitting 100 years.
So that’s one field, how wrong could they be on the other 300 odd producing installations?

You have to be a little desperate to keep twisting the old McCrone report and then use as a reason why you should dismiss what he says. That requires a pretty impressive mis-reading of the report (beyond the obvious tagline) and a misunderstanding of his role and what secret means.

In the meantime, if you want to look at misinformation try the bare faced lies coming from Salmond re reserves etc.

At best, estimating the value of reserves is a difficult process unless you are the deceitful one and then it’s easy – just one (inflated) figure – £1.5 trillion take it or leave it. So since he is clearly lying now, do we also dismiss everything he says in the same way that you would like to dismiss McCrone – actually that is not a bad idea.