Someone made a post about Norway's pension fund. They have taken a long term view for the good of the country. Companies drilling for oil in the North Sea pay about 78 per cent tax. Those taxes go into the pension fund, which in 2019 will hold about $1 trillion. Norwegians have a high standard of living. Health care is free. Unemployment is around 2.6 per cent.
One thing to remember about Norway and the Norwegian Continental Shelf oil and gas exploration story is not just the level of taxation but the way the access licensing was originally set up.
The Government created a company called Statoil with the principle of 50 percent state participation in each production licence granted.
This was later amended so that sovereign ownership could be varied depending on circumstances.
They also created another company at a later date called Petoro to manage their interests in oil field, pipelines and onshore infrastructure.
Statoil was eventually privatised and floated with the Government retaining 67% of the shares.
Statoil is a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is a fully integrated petroleum company with operations in thirty-six countries. By revenue, Statoil is ranked by Forbes Magazine (2013) as the world's eleventh largest oil and gas company and the twenty-sixth largest company, regardless of industry, by profit in the world. The company has about 23,000 employees.
In the early days the Government made it an obligation for license applicants that they would teach the Government representatives the ropes of oil exploration. They also gave preference to prospective license holders who were willing to source infrastructure locally. Hence the Norwegians have a healthy oil exploration equipment industry and export their expertise around the world.
If Australia had done something similar it would have been like BHP partnering with a Government enterprise to exploit iron ore. Possibly difficult with our States setup and the need to finance the sovereign share of development costs and the associated risk.
At least Australians have super funds where they can be part owners of BHP through their funds, even though the big miners are majority overseas owned.
TLDR; they not only receive royalties they have a share of the profits.