Global energy consumption is expected to grow by 41% by 2035, BP Plc. (NYSE: BP) said in its recently published Energy Outlook 2035 report.

“That is slower than the last two decades where the increase was around 50%, but it is still the rough equivalent of adding another U.S. and another China to the current energy demand,” said Luke Keller, vice president of BP America.

Speaking at the Winter NAPE Business Conference on Feb. 5, Keller said the fastest growing fossil fuel will be natural gas, with demand increasing about 2% a year by 2035. Oil will still dominate transportation, however, with 87% of vehicles running on gasoline or diesel. Demand for oil will grow slowly, at less than 1% per year, which translates into an extra 19 million barrels a day worldwide.

For the first time, the world is likely to have no single dominant fuel. The company thinks that oil, natural gas and coal are likely to converge. The remainder of the energy market will be taken up by nuclear, hydro and renewables, he said.

Keller said many could end up looking at such steep demand curves with either complacency or panic – the two ways that Americans view energy, according to the country’s first energy secretary, James Salinger.

“I’m confident that the energy sector can meet the challenge of fueling the future generations of this country and the world,” Keller said. “The reason I’m confident is because we have already done it.”

He recalled the oil shock in 1970 compared to today, as crude oil reserves have grown to more than twice what they were then. He also remembered analysts’ recent fears that world production had plateaued and was heading toward an inevitable decline. These are fears, he said, that are now receding.

“If you take a long term view, you can see why,” he said. “The history of our industry is one which increasing demand brings increasing innovation.”

The last two decades have seen the opening of energy frontiers such as shale gas, tight oil, heavy oil and deepwater. In the last five years, these technologies have truly come into their own, he said, leading to an increase in global proved reserves to more than 50 years of oil and gas.

In 2012, the U.S. reported the largest oil and gas production increases in the world, as well as the largest in national history. In 2013, it looked like the increase in U.S. oil production was even bigger – one of the largest increases in world history, he said.

In the early 1990s, deepwater scarcely existed. Today however, he said, more than 25 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) have been discovered in deepwater around the world.

Because of these technological developments, the U.S. is on track to surpass Russia as the largest combined producer of oil and gas, he said.

“All in all, the debate about peak oil appears to have, well, peaked. There’s a lot of oil in the world,” he said.

The world energy supply is sufficient to meet the country’s needs and is increasingly secure. BP projects that the U.S. will be self-sufficient in energy by 2035.

Keller emphasized that this can only be possible if the government improves the development of all forms of energy in a free market atmosphere, and with a fair and just legal system. “If government does that, we certainly can help bring an end to the cycle of complacency and panic,” he said.

While the last several years have shown that the energy picture can change with incredible speed, Keller sees no cause for either complacency or panic.

“Our industry has never run from a challenge and we’re not going to start now,” he said. “The next 20 years could be some of the most exciting that our industry has ever experienced.”