The oil industry is doing a better job of hiring women. Keeping them remains thechallenge, says ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance.

Conoco, the world's biggest independent oil producer, has seenits percentage of female and minority workers climb among itsyoungest generation of employees, Lance said inan interview from his Houston headquarters on Thursday.

Boosting diversity is a priority at thecompany, which has 13,000 employees, Lance said. Women make up aquarter of his eight-member executive leadership team and accountfor four of 10 seats on the board of directors. Conoco didn't see arise in sexual harassment complaints last year, he said, even ashigh-profile cases made headlines.

Still, there's work to be done, especially in making it easierfor women to sustain a career in the business, Lance said.

“This industry is not an industry that has done well atattracting females and then retaining them as they go forwardraising a family,” Lance said. “The challenge for our business, ourcompany and our industry is retention over the course of 20 to 30years.”

In 2016, 27 percent of Conoco's employees were women, accordingto data compiled by Bloomberg. A report that year fromthe American Petroleum Institute, theindustry's trade group, found that women accounted for 17 percentof the workforce at oil, natural gas and petrochemicalcompanies.

Seventeen percent of Conoco's top leadership and 28 percent ofits professional employees were women in 2016, according to thecompany's Sustainability Report.Minorities made up 23 percent of the workforce.

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