Nationalists argue that, mostly thanks to North Sea oil and gas, Scotland subsidises the union and would be better off alone.
Welcoming the deal, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said it was a "massive vote of confidence" in the North Sea oil and gas industry.
And it is also because high energy prices, while hurting consumers, boost government revenues thanks to the remnants of North Sea oil and gas production.
Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser, convener of the Scottish Parliament's energy, economy and tourism committee, said taxes should be favourable to North Sea oil and gas.
The service will be held in Aberdeen's St Nicholas' Kirk and conducted by the Rev Andrew Jolly, chaplain to the North Sea oil and gas industry.
The index of production grew 0.3% in November, compared with October, but had been expected to grow more as some North Sea oil and gas production resumed following maintenance.
As I pointed out in a piece for BBC News at 10 on Monday, UK growth has been pushed down quite a lot recently by declining North Sea oil and gas output.
But that needs to be seen in the context of another set of government figures that suggest Scots contribute more, when you include a geographical share of North Sea oil and gas revenue.
Combined output of North Sea oil and gas has fallen considerably from its heyday at the end of the 1970s to 2.48 million barrels a day last year, a 6% fall from the previous year.
FORBES: North Sea Oil and Gas may Provide One Third of Britain's Energy by 2020.
Mr Gray, a Labour councillor who worked at the former oil yards at Ardersier and Nigg, said the North Sea oil and gas boom of the 1970s could be replicated by the rush towards renewables.
Prof Kemp, an expert in North Sea oil and gas exploration economics, also said devolving tax policies would create the complicated situation of separate taxation regimes in Scottish and the rest of the UK's waters.
Impressed by arguments that nuclear energy is a proven source of low-carbon power, and worried about the dependence on foreign fossil fuels caused by the decline of North Sea oil and gas, the government has been preparing the ground for a nuclear revival.
Large oil and natural gas were first discovered in the North Sea during the oil and gas exploration boom that followed the first oil shock in the early '70s.
Wood Group's largest division has secured a major North Sea contract extension with oil and gas giant Total.
The group, which focuses on oil and gas exploration, primarily in the UK and the Norwegian North Sea, reported a dramatic boost to production, proven reserves and cash flow last year.
After peaking in 2001, production in the North Sea, Europe's largest reserve of oil and gas, plunged.
The material was used in a nuclear power experiment at Dounreay later abandoned following the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea.
Oil and Gas UK - the body representing operators and contractors in the North Sea - is using the 20th anniversary of the disaster to reinforce the safety message offshore.
However, the RMT Union which represents Oil and Gas workers in the North Sea, urged caution when interpreting the statistics in the report.
Private equity backed 2Co wants to build a new coal plant above the Hatfield coal mine and pump the gas to North Sea oil fields where it can be used for enhanced oil recovery.
The registered charity said the skills developed over the decade could then be sold abroad, as the oil and gas experience built up in North Sea oil fields is now being sold across the world.
If it had been an independent country over the past decade, with a geographical share of oil and gas revenues, the impact of the recent fall in North Sea output on Scotland's tax revenues and overall economic growth would have been more dramatic.
And Statoil, a large Norwegian oil and gas company, performs a similar trick at two places in the North Sea.
And its newly discovered offshore fields of oil and natural gas may turn out to be bigger than those in the North Sea in the 1960s.
Earlier this week, industry body Oil and Gas UK released its own survey, which suggested confidence among companies operating in the North Sea was increasing.
It is convenient to account for both oil and gas in terms of the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil, although actual North Sea oil production has fallen from just above 3 million bpd in1979 to just over one million bpd now.
FORBES: North Sea Oil and Gas may Provide One Third of Britain's Energy by 2020.
He discovered gas fields in Louisiana in the 1960s and, a decade later, oil in the North Sea off the Netherlands.
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