First off, yes I understand there are many evils in the oil and gas industry and while I’d agree with you, that’s not the point of this post.
Companies want to end work from home for (insert BS reasons). Since the age of satellites and the internet, it has never been a problem for the oil and gas industry to work remotely. Day after day, across multiple states and time zones, multi-million dollar projects are being completed successfully without the worker and supervisor ever seeing each other. Personally, I’ve only ever seen my boss once in the past six months and he’s working from his house, sometimes poolside. It’s generally expected, unless you’re new, that you can accomplish your duties without supervision. If an industry that requires little more than a high school education can accomplish remote work successfully, there’s no reason your office can’t do the same.