The energy needs of the United States for the next 100 years can be met by using its existing underground natural gas and oil, and it is economically feasible to obtain it, according to Rex Tillerson, Chairman, President and CEO of ExxonMobil.

“Industry technologies have now put within reach enough natural gas to help power the US economy at its current demand for more than a century,” said Tillerson  in his ‘State of Energy’ address to the Greater Houston Partnership during a luncheon this week  in Texas at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston, reports News92FM Houston.

“Sources of oil and natural gas, long-dismissed as uneconomic and inaccessible are being transformed into energy supplies that are successful, reliable, and competitive,” said Tillerson.

“By itself, Texas ranks as the number eight oil producer among the world’s top 10 producers of crude oil,” said Tillerson. “Of course, the rest of them are countries,” joked the CEO.

Texas produces more than three million barrels of oil each day, due to production growth in places like the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, and the Permian Basin in West Texas. That represents “an astounding 35% of daily US production,” said Tillerson. “It should be no surprise to learn that our nation is now the number one producer of total energy coming from oil and natural gas.”

Horizontal drilling techniques and hydraulic fracturing created a boom in South and West Texas sites. In fracturing, millions of gallons of water and chemicals are pumped at high pressure to break shale, and prop open the cracks with sand, allowing oil and gas to flow up a well.

The Tillerson remarks mirrored comments President Barack Obama made this week, in which he praised the US energy industry in bolstering his claims of an improved American economy. “The number one oil and gas producer in the world is no longer Russia or Saudi Arabia; it’s America,” boasted President Obama in his economic address at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Together, Mexico, Canada, and the United States now produce more barrels of oil than any other nation or region in the world.