Children’s book about oil and gas industry

The oil and gas indus­try  is impor­tant to North Dakota’s econ­o­my, but is still an indus­try many peo­ple don’t total­ly understand.

 There is a new book writ­ten by a North Dako­ta man that can help teach peo­ple of all ages just how impor­tant ener­gy is to the state.

Lucas Wurtz has been dream­ing about this for quite some time. He’s not just read­ing a book to his son, Fer­gu­son, he’s read­ing a book he wrote, about an indus­try he’s proud to be a part of.

Wurtz is a facil­i­ty spe­cial­ist for Marathon Oil Cor­po­ra­tion and a life­long North Dakotan.

This book was an idea Wurtz tossed around for about six months. Now that it’s pub­lished and avail­able to pur­chase, he hopes the sto­ry of “Oscar the Lit­tle Pumper” can shed some light on the impor­tance of the oil and gas industry.

“I just thought maybe this would bring a lit­tle bit of aware­ness to the kids and maybe even the par­ents when they’re read­ing the book to their kids,” Wurtz said. “While I think renew­able stuff is awe­some like wind tur­bines and all that there’s just, there’s no replace­ment for petro­le­um prod­ucts like plas­tic. And I just think it’s a lot of things that peo­ple just take for grant­ed and they don’t real­ly think about.”

He hopes his book will get peo­ple of all ages think­ing about those prod­ucts, where they come from, and the peo­ple whose liveli­hoods depend on them.

Wurtz hopes to have it avail­able in book­stores soon. He’s also work­ing on ideas for more books in the future.