The interim Minister of Employment and Social Security, Fátima Báñez, visits the CLH facility in Santurtzi

• The CLH Group has hired more than 1,200 professionals over the last 10 years as part of its staff renewal and rejuvenation process 

The Minister of Employment and Social Security, Fátima Báñez, together with the candidate of the Basque PP for Lehendakari, Alfonso Alonso, and the Biscayan candidates Antón Damborenea and Nerea Llanos, visited earlier today the terminal that the leading fuel transport and storage company manages in Santurtzi. During the visit she was accompanied by the Chairman of the CLH Group, José Luis López de Silanes, and other executives of the company who explained to all the assistants the important staff renewal and rejuvenation plan that the company has implemented in recent years.

At present, nearly 1,400 professionals work for the CLH Group, 71 of whom perform their duties at facilities in the Basque Country. Starting in 2005, the CLH Group began to implement a major staff renewal and rejuvenation process by hiring more than 1,200 new employees, including both permanent and temporary contracts, over the last 10 years, as the Chairman has pointed out during the visit.

The process has entailed an important staff renewal and a reduction of the average workforce age, which went from the age of 52 in 2005 to 45 in 2016. It has also helped the company adapt to the required professional profiles, its optimisation and the generation of youth employment. López de Silanes also highlighted the company’s diversity policy and pointed out that in 2015, 53% of new hires in technical positions were women.

Furthermore, López de Silanes added that the renewal process was implemented through Partial Retirement Plans, which were negotiated with the labour unions and widely accepted by staff. He also highlighted that the company offers employment stability, with an average tenure of 19 years and a rate of permanent contracts exceeding 90%.

The CLH Group also has policies in place for attracting and retaining talent, training, professional development and work-life balance, aimed at keeping employees satisfied and strengthening their sense of belonging and commitment to the business project. Work-life balance and flexibility policies are among those policies, the purpose of which is to promote a balance between work, family life and leisure time.

In addition, the CLH Group has joined the Inserta agreement of the ONCE Foundation, which aims to facilitate employment opportunities for disabled people, both in a direct and indirect manner, and to carry out new initiatives that contribute to the wellbeing of these people.

Since 2014, the CLH Group has been implementing an Entrepreneurship Support Policy and cooperates with public authorities and general interest associations in relation to activities aimed at developing new innovative projects for contributing to job creation and new industrial activities.

Within this entrepreneurship support policy, CLH has signed agreements to promote entrepreneurship with several institutions, such as Campus Iberus, an entity comprising the main universities in the Ebro Valley, the Agency for Business Innovation, Funding and Internationalisation of Castilla y León (ADE), the Promotion Institute of the Region of Murcia, the San Fernando de Henares local government, and Madrid's Carlos III University.

These and other courses of action have led the CLH Group to be awarded the "Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Strategy Member Company 2013-2016" seal, which is granted by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security.

About the CLH Group

The CLH Group is the leading company engaged in the transport and storage of oil products in the Spanish market. In Spain, it has a pipeline network over 4,000 kilometres in length and 40 storage facilities, three of which are located in the Basque Country, specifically in the Port of Bilbao, Santurce and Rivabellosa, as well as 28 airport facilities, including the one located at Bilbao Airport.

At the international level, the company is present in the United Kingdom, through CLH-PS, where it manages an infrastructures network composed of 2,000 kilometres of oil pipelines and 16 storage facilities.

CLH is also developing a major project in the Sultanate of Oman, where it has established a company named OLC in conjunction with Orpic, which is building a 300-kilometre oil pipeline and a storage facility.

Furthermore, through its subsidiary CLH Aviation Ireland Ltd., its bid for operation and remodelling of the fuel storage terminal at Dublin Airport was recently accepted, as the successful bidder in the call for proposals by the Dublin Airport Authority.