While the City of Seattle, Foss Maritime, and the Port of Seattle are still tied up in litigation over whether Shell's Arctic fleet can return to Terminal 5 without penalty, it looks like Shell is pushing out a little bit of positive PR for its Arctic missions. Today, the oil and gas company released a glowing report entitled, "Economic Impacts in Puget Sound of Shell's Alaska Exploration Program."

McDowell Group, an Alaskan research group and consultancy hired by Shell, created an outline of economic impacts in the region by interviewing various port authorities, city officials in Bellingham and Port Angeles, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the Manufacturing Industrial Council (which advocated for Shell's tenure in Seattle), the Washington Maritime Association, and Shell itself. Curiously, they failed to list kayak rental companies—or even City of Seattle officials, who, unlike their counterparts in Bellingham and Port Angeles, appear to have been left off the call list.

The report claims that Shell's Arctic exploration program has spent $313 million on Puget Sound activities between 2006 and 2014, and about half of that "actually created jobs, income, and economic output in the Puget Sound economy." (That's about $19.8 million a year.) When Shell's Arctic fleet returns to Puget Sound, the report estimates that Shell will spend $172.7 million in the region between 2015 and 2016, creating 710 to 810 jobs.

The report also anticipates more crude oil flowing to Puget Sound refineries as a result of Arctic exploration. The news was well-timed: The House Energy and Commerce Committee just voted to lift the United States' 40-year-old crude oil export ban a few hours ago. That's bad news, however, for the environmentalists who have long warned that lifting the ban could turn Puget Sound into a highway for oil and gas shipments to Asia, which would invite even more crude oil train and barge traffic in and near Seattle.

Here's more on the report's methodology:

Shell and Superior Energy Services provided confidential vendor data that enabled the research team to understand how money flowed through Puget Sound and impacted the broader region. Interviews helped refine the interpretation of the data, especially related to residency of workers and timing of spending. With this vendor data it was possible to estimate the indirect and induced effects (often termed “multiplier effects”) of Shell’s activity in Puget Sound.

And here's some of what the report had to say about Seattle:

In preparation for Shell’s arrival, modifications to T5 were made. Once Shell arrived, with the Polar Pioneer (a 400’ by 292’ drill rig) and a variety of other support vessels, the fleet required stevedores, electricians, welders, engineers, hydraulic technicians, equipment operators, and other skilled labor. Vigor Industrial completed three barges for use by Foss Maritime in support of Shell’s operations at T5.

It's interesting that the report didn't actually tally up the number of jobs created in Seattle. In May, Foss Maritime announced that 461 jobs had been created as a result of Shell's activities, but a follow-up Seattle Times report showed that the real number of local jobs created was significantly less—half of the 461 jobs were already on Shell's payroll or belonged to oil rig workers who head north when the rig goes to the Arctic.

"It is expected exploration and possible development activity related to offshore oil and gas resources in Alaska will continue to benefit the region for years and possibly decades to come," the report concludes.

Looks like Shell intends to come back. And stay.