Documents like;
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/136390/production_projections.pdf
highlight how far along the road we are from "UK Peak Oil". The switch to being import dependent happened in 2005/2006, and the UK as a whole now is 36% dependant on import oil. By 2030 (a mere 17 years away), the UK is expected to be 67% import dependent (assuming anyone has any left to sell us....). Even assuming the oil is all Scottish, a time will come soon after 2030 when the oil cannot even keep Scotlands fires burning and cars going, without Scotland becoming import dependant too. So as a sustainer of an independent Scotland, oil, even if Scotland could lay claim to it, is a pretty short fix. Within a few years, oil becomes so insignificant that its not worth considering, and the fledgling Scotland is going to have to find something else to sustain it. Now, I would have that thought that something as significant as independence would need to be based on something better that a sub 20 year short fix. The union is, after all, 306 years old and counting, and thats still quite young in world history. Orkney and Shetland have, meantime, been pledged as security for 545 years. Would we really want to open the next chapter in Scotlands history to find that after all these arrangements that have been in place for centuries, independence is a 20 year flash in the pan, after which Scotland (probably minus Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles by then), is grovelling to the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland to be allowed back in again?
Please do answer some of these questions Pirate Lassie. The silence is deafening.