January 11, 1982

The demand for oil is unlikely to grow at all this year, industry economists predict. But they also say that Saudi Arabia, by lowering its production, is both able and willing to prevent any substantial decline in the crude oil prices charged by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. ''Everyone expects 1982 to be a lackluster year as far as petroleum demand is concerned,'' said Tor Mello, chief economist for Texaco Inc. ''We had forecast about a million-barrel-a-day increase in free world petroleum demand in 1982 over 1981,'' he said. ''But in view of the changed economic outlook, we are now looking for petroleum demand in 1982 to be flat or only slightly increased.''

Until Friday, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the International Business Machines Corporation faced a common opponent: the Justice Department. But with the ending of the suits against both companies, the biggest opponents of the two uncaged giants could be each other. A.T.& T. and I.B.M., sued by the Justice Department after they came to domi nate t heir respective industries, are now finding their businesses ra pidly merging and their products overlapping. I.B.M., for instance, is a part-owner of Satellite Business Systems, a company that recently began providing, among other services, long-distance telephone transmission. A.T.& T., for its part, wants to start a computer-to-computer communications network this year.

New York City is preparing to reach into its own treasury to insure that surplus cheese, provided under a Federal plan, is made available to the poor, the city's Commissioner of General Services said yesterday. The Commissioner, Robert M. Litke, said the city would apparently have to pay to transport its 1.65 million-pound allocation of processed American cheese from state distribution points and then store it. The state is planning to store the cheese - 2.4 million pounds -in refrigerated warehouses at nine sites outside New York City when it is received in February from the Federal Government. The state's Office of General Services, which is handling the distribution, says the state does not have a refrigerated warehouse available in the city.

The Reagan Administration has asked European countries and Japan to stop supplying vital components for a new pipeline that would carry Soviet natural gas into Western Europe, according to diplomatic sources. The request follows a United States decision to ban such shipments by the General Electric Company. It is seen as the first major test of Western Europe's willingness to support, at least passively, the economic sanctions imposed by President Reagan upon the Soviet Union after the declaration of martial law in Poland. ''We'll see whether our allies are prepared to stand with us on this,'' a senior United States diplomat said. In another development, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said in Brussels that the United States intended to seek a framework for NATO support of sanctions against the Soviet Union unless the situation in Poland is resolved soon. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is to hold its first emergency meeting of Foreign Ministers in Brussels on Monday. (Page A13.)

Standby draft boards established over the last few months have many more female, black and Hispanic members than the boards of the Vietnam era, according to the Selective Service System. And interviews with a score of the new members in the New York metropolitan area show that their views on war and military service vary widely. ''I was a student activist,'' said a Connecticut man. ''I'm pro-E.R.A,'' said a New Jersey woman. ''I was definitely against that war - that's one of the reasons I wanted to get involved in this,'' another Connecticut man said. The new boards, authorized by Congress in 1980, are designed to mirror the racial and ethnic composition of the areas under their jurisdiction, as measured by the 1980 Census, according to Joan Lamb, a spokesman for the Selective Service System.