Though it’s not easy to quantify exactly how much the recent US oil & gas production boom contributes to GDP growth, the CME Group’s Chief Economist Blu Putnam gives it a go.

Read an exclusive Breaking Energy interview with Blu Putnam here.

Since 2005 US oil production increased 29% and natural gas output rose 33%, which is impressive and impacting economic growth, but by how much? Putnam says since indirect impacts “can be much larger and more powerful over time than the direct effects,” calculating the US energy boom’s contribution to economic growth is more art than science.

Here is what he admittedly calls a back-of-the-envelope calculation:

“Taking a very broad view of the indirect stimulus coming from the new oil and natural gas production, the incremental advantage to the US is probably between 0.5% and 1% of extra real GDP per year, and this energy growth dividend may last for the next five years or more as production continues to increase, as the distribution infrastructure is built, and as industrial users make new investments and build new plants to take advantage of the energy boom…What is clear is that the energy boom has come at a very good time for the US economy relative to other industrial economies struggling with the lingering aftereffects of the Great Recession of 2008-2009.”