The North Sea oil revenues will be one of the key points of negotiation between Scotland and Westminster should Scotland vote for independence. Readers have been debating how the proceeds would be divided on threads throughout the Reality check series on Scottish independence. Our community coordinators, who work below the line monitoring comments and selecting themes which our readers are interested in, have pulled together the following comments, which are typical.

@maisiedotts writes:



It is Westminster who has consistently robbed Scotland of resources think oil fish etc all used as pawns in Westminster's quest for power. We send only 59 MPs (of all shades and just 52 post 2013) south - think about it, how's that going to influence Westminster policy out of 650?

@whatshappening writes:

This is the biggest UK political story in a generation.

By the way it could have been all settled by now if:

- The UK gov hadn't covered up the true extent of North Sea oil in the 70s

- The UK gov hadn't fixed the result of the 79 devolution referendum and then renegaded on a promise to provide more powers if there was a "No" vote, meaning there wasn't another referendum on devolution until 1997

- The UK parties in Scotland hadn't blocked the SNP's bill to hold a referendum a couple of years ago while they were still a minority administration

Who would get the oil revenues if Scotland became independent?

Analysis

North Sea oil is the jewel - or rather the thistle - in the crown of an independent Scotland. Countries with "black gold" can go it alone in a way others cannot. This explains the desperation of Greenland to drill in its Arctic waters. It knows a big discovery could provide a pathway to quick economic - and then political - independence from the colonial masters in Denmark. Hence Norway's decision not to join the European Union.

Who gets the oil in the event of Scottish independence? It depends who you speak to and any division of the spoils will be hotly fought over by politicians in Edinburgh and London. If you draw a median line out across the North Sea from the border then 90% of the oil tax revenues will accrue to Scotland. If the calculation is done on the basis of population then that figure will be reduced to 9%, according to the (London-based) National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr).

Angus Armstrong, the author of that Niesr report to sum up their findings, said:

The Geneva agreement on natural resources under the sea dictates that they are divided by the median lines. Most people accept that the Geneva approach is the standard approach. Which gives Scotland 91% of revenues. But this thing, the income, is declining now. It's also very volatile. If you look at budget deficits it makes a huge difference.

It is not hard to imagine how the Scottish National Party sees the divide but politicians there - led by former oil economist Alex Salmond - are acutely aware that oil and gas production are currently falling fast - 17% last year alone.

The tax revenues will be falling too but then oil prices have also been soaring to recent levels of $118 per barrel from less than $10 in 1998. The crude price is expected to grow further - some predict $200 - leaving plenty of opportunities for well targeted, higher taxes.

The SNP like to point to Norway as an economic model because that Scandinavian nation has a small population of 5m similar to Scotland and yet which is now sitting on a national pension fund worth over £300bn.

Britain meanwhile has spent its hydrocarbon inheritance as it was produced, something Salmond has promised he would no longer do. He likes to argue that an independent Scotland could raise £54bn from tax revenues in the next five years, underwriting the country's ability to pay off debt and rebuild the local economy.

Most of the big oil fields lie offshore north of a Berwick-on-Tweed border while an enormous new area of hydrocarbon production is being developed west of the Shetland Islands. The southern North Sea – off East Anglia - is still a significant area for gas production but nothing like what lies north of there.

London holds political control of the tax levels currently but the civil servants that work on North Sea regulatory affairs are based in Aberdeen. An independent Scotland therefore would have most of the brain power in place while all the big oil companies use Aberdeen as an industrial centre for their offshore operations too.

Uncertainty over the political future of Scotland will not help investment levels in the North Sea but there seems to be no widespread corporate concern that a self-standing Edinburgh parliament would milk the oil and gas sector dry. As one oil executive told the Guardian privately: "an independent Scotland would have an even bigger vested interest in not killing the golden goose."

And the oil industry believes it has plenty to moan about when it comes to London. George Osborne has been the latest in a long line of chancellors who have slapped windfall taxes on the North Sea and endangered investment there. One key industry lender - Lloyd's Banking Group - said Britain held more of a political risk than countries such as Egypt because of endless tinkering by UK ministers with the fiscal regime.

But the UK does have plenty of international political clout at a time when Brussels has indicated a willingness to try to seize control of the health and safety regime offshore. An independent Scotland might find it harder to resist the European Commission and yet Salmond has already shown a commitment to building up renewable wind energy also. Edinburgh is open to blue-sky thinking as well as black gold.

Verdict

It is hard to argue against oil revenues following the physical locations of the fields. That is the way international agreements have generally been made - for instance the recent treaty between Norway and Russia covering the Barents Sea. But some account must surely be made of the historical contributions of London-based groups such as BP for their role in extracting the oil at huge initial expense. Clearly it is fair also to argue that Scotland has benefited from higher levels of public spending from Whitehall plus the financial bail out of Royal Bank of Scotland. The oil question will need to be thrown into a wider mix around issues such as defence. There will be a war of words over the North Sea but presumably not a clash of weapons as was seen over oil in the north and south of Sudan.

Do you have more evidence that might change our verdict? Get in touch below the line and we'll update our findings.

11.45am: There are many interesting points raised here, some suggesting that the North Sea has more financial investment than ever – so no sign of that much-vaunted "end of Britain's oil" story.

Unfortunately, the rate of production is falling at record levels. The latest figures for 2011 say oil and gas output is down by 18% and, although there are a few high profile new schemes, the UK – or Scotland and England – are running to keep up. These are old fields depleting very fast and the new projects tend to be smaller (but more expensive).

One specific question is this (from ilikesittingdown):

Surely the historical contributions and initial investments from London-based groups have been accounted for by decades of healthy revenue from the extracted oil to date. It's not as if these corporations have just set up shop, and because they did decades ago [that] doesn't give them the given right to keep mining for decades to come.

Well maybe for some. But who will pay for the old field platforms to be dismantled if the oil companies argue that their legal inheritance to keep producing on old terms agreed with the UK government has been changed?

12.00pm: My colleague Severin Carrell caught up with the energy minister, Charles Hendry, the other day and sent me over these comments about why oil is best of British:

Hendry, the UK energy minister, said his government had not begun to look at the Scottish government's territorial claim to more than 80% of North Sea oil and gas reserves. "We haven't even got into those discussions ... at this stage, that issue may never arise," he said. "The nature of what we'll be arguing in the run-up to the referendum is that it's best to keep the structure we've got; that's the best way of getting investment coming through into Scotland; that's the best way of keeping people's electricity bills down in Scotland and therefore that we have the right policy in place at the moment. "Our view at the moment is that this is a UK-wide industry – people have invested based on an assumption of that. We believe that is the best way forward. We have not got into detailed discussions and negotiations about how independence would affect that because the referendum hasn't even been established and we've got all of those issues to go through. "But what we do think is that when people look at the broader issues, and I think energy is a very important part of that process, then the attractiveness of the UK overall and in Scotland, is enhanced by being part of the United Kingdom, the security of supply is enhanced by looking at it on a broader UK-wide basis, we're more able to move to a low carbon sustainable and affordable UK energy policy if we do it on a broader basis." Hendry argued that the difficulties of operating two different taxation and regulatory regimes in what is essentially the same region – the North Sea – will be for the Scottish government to tackle. So far, it has failed to do so.

12.28pm: There have been many requests for some hard figures figures on North Sea tax revenues.

It is a movable feast and economists, as well as politicians, can change their minds. The non-partisan Office of Budget Responsibility argues that the UK will bring in £11.1bn in the 2011/12 financial year, which will close at the end of this month.

But there again, earlier in the year the OBR was telling the government to expect £13.4bn. The change is to do with the faster than expected fall in oil and gas production.

This cash all goes to the Treasury in London and then is distributed back to Scotland and the regions.

3.07pm: Professor Alexander Kemp, of Aberdeen University, has long been an excellent source of detailed information on the North Sea.

He has done various bits of number-crunching work on Scottish independence, but insists he is has no view on whether Scotland should go it alone.

This is well worth a read for those wanting more "hard numbers".

5.24pm: OK. I think we are going to have to wrap it up there. It's Friday afternoon and the family weekend beckons. Very many thanks for all those who have contributed to a civilised and constructive debate on a potentially-emotive issue.

The past cast a shadow over the hundreds of different comments as much as the future and this may influence discussions should political independence become a reality. North Sea platforms have been pumping for over 30 years and there have been many reminders that a lot of public cash has been raised in taxes (and occasionally mis-spent) - certainly not set aside in any way for future generations as in Norway.

The current tax take for this year is put at over £11bn but the future is uncertain. There will be further declines in oil and gas output but global prices can be expected to keep on rising - even above the very high level of $128 per barrel reached earlier this week.

There has been more debate on how any the past legacy of investment would be dealt with and plenty of discussion about whether operators and their facilities and workers could partly decamp to England, if corporation tax and others fiscal measures made it better.

There seems little argument that Scotland would secure its 90% stake in the oil, on the basis of the fields being located below the seabed of its teritorial waters.

But there is always opportunities for disagreement over oil. Russia and Norway agreed last summer how they would divide up the oil-rich Barents Sea but a deal only came after decades of negotiation.

The debate over Scottish oil has only just begun.