Oil and Energy Demand in Developing Countries in 1990

How much of the world's oil and energy supply will the non-OPEC less developed countries (NOLDCs) demand in the next decade? Will their requirements be small and thus fairly insignificant compared with world demand, or large and relatively important? How will world demand be affected by the economic growth of the NOLDCs? In the study on which this article is based, we try to develop some reasonable forecasts of NOLDC energy demands in the next 10 years.' Our focus is mainly on the demand for oil, but we also give some attention to the total commercial energy requirements of these countries. We have tried to be explicit about the uncertainties associated with our forecasts, and with the income and price elasticities on which they are based.