Reflecting the underlying assumed developments of the key drivers, total primary energy demand is forecast to increase by 96 mboe/d between 2015 and 2040, rising from 276 mboe/d to 372 mboe/d. In relative terms, this represents a 35% increase compared to the base year of 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 1.2 % during the forecast period. This significant global energy demand growth is, however, unequally distributed among major regions and country groupings. Energy demand in developing countries is expected to grow at an average rate of 1.9% p.a. over the period 2015–2040. This is in sharp contrast to an average growth rate of 0.1% p.a. projected for the OECD and 0.9% p.a. for Eurasia. The key reasons for this variation are the different prospects that exist among major country groups in terms of population growth, urbanization rates and expansion in economic activity. Through the use of smart contracts, we can now replace paper and complex legal agreements that are cumbersome, difficult to transfer and can be hard to track for the average person and even for sophisticated investors. Our solution for commodity investing (mainly in oil) would be to switch to a digital system along the lines of Bitcoin but linked to an asset. This solution is the PERMIAN Token (XPR). Imagine a vault of oil barrels. The oil barrels are owned by ""Oil-owner Inc."" and the vault is owned by ""Vault Inc."" Vault Inc. has a spectacular reputation and third-party auditors who verify the amount of oil barrels in its vault. Oil-owner Inc. could offer a digital token to the public that represents ownership of the oil barrels and through a smart contract with Vault Inc. maintain a public off-chain registry that relates fractional interest in the gold with the tokens. For every token sold, Oil-owner Inc. transfers ownership to Vault Inc., who holds it on behalf of the token owner. Vault Inc. guarantees redemption of the value price of oil barrels by anyone who can prove ownership through a digital signature. Oil-owner Inc. can take advantage of the fact that Vault Inc. is trusted (and audited). Owners of the tokens rely on Vault Inc.'s representations and not on Oil-owner Inc. (even though Oil-owner Inc. is the token issuer). One of the main advantages would be that buyers of the tokens could know that they are the only person who has received the token, whereas a buyer of a paper certificate has no way of knowing that the same certificate hasn't been sold to multiple people.