FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jeff Lenard
December 21, 2000 (703) 684-3600, ext. 372
jlenard@cstorecentral.com

Motor Fuel Suppliers Join Retailers, Others in Successful XML Transmissions
Announcements a Major Advance in Groundbreaking Technology Effort

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - CITGO Petroleum Corporation is the latest company to announce that it has successfully transmitted daily production feeds of credit card processing reconciliation data using eXtensible Mark-up Language
(XML) developed in conjunction with the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

"This announcement marks a major advance in the implementation of electronic business document exchanges," said NACS' Chief Technology Officer John Hervey. "After five years of work in developing open, non-proprietary industry-specific guidelines, the stage is now set to allow retailers, suppliers, and solution providers to seamlessly exchange financial settlement, ordering, invoicing, and accounting information."

CITGO announced in late November that it had begun sending out a daily production feed of credit card processing reconciliation in an XML format developed jointly by NACS, CITGO, and Conoco, Inc., to Evans Oil, a CITGO distributor located in Louisiana. "Evans Oil's accounting system provider, AIMS, Inc., has been very instrumental in making this happen as quickly as it did," Hervey said. Conoco plans to begin sending data to distributors participating in NACS' XML pilot program by year's end.

XML is a set of codes that describes text within a document to convey information electronically. Retailers will be able to use the technology to conduct electronic transactions on general merchandise and supplies, motor fuels, and lottery invoicing and product activity.

In addition to CITGO and Conoco, a number of other companies are participating in XML tests, including nearly 20 convenience store retailers, six wholesalers, eight solution providers, and two financial settlement companies. Ten lottery states are also working to implement the guidelines.

With an increasing volume of transactions in convenience stores now taking place with credit cards -- $65 billion dollars (28 percent of total sales) in transactions in 1999 -- XML is expected to lead to significant savings for the industry as electronic business document exchanges are simplified.

"This announcement is an important milestone in the development of our XML/EDI program we call NAXML, short for the NACS XML program," said Hervey.

"There are huge time and cost savings in reconciling credit card settlements electronically," noted AIMS, Inc.'s President Robert Canterbury. He added that the ability to electronically transmit data in an Internet-standard
file format (XML) makes the process particularly affordable for multi-branded distributors. Canterbury said that Evans Oil has been able to reduce personnel costs related to processing credit card settlements by up to 80 percent through the electronic transfer of credit card data.

"We are excited about the opportunities that XML brings. It is an open and non-proprietary language that our channel of trade can use to address the problem of loose system-to-system integration and data exchange. It lowers some of the barriers that traditional EDI has, and will allow us to do business electronically with more of our trading partners," said Hervey. He added that interested convenience store retailers and suppliers not yet involved in the pilot program should contact him at jhervey@cstorecentral.com.

The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) is an international trade association representing over 2,300 retail and 1,700 supplier members. The U.S. convenience store industry, with 119,400 stores across the country, posted $234 billion in total sales for 1999, with $134 billion in motor fuels sales.


Jeff Lenard
Director, Communications
National Association of Convenience Stores
1605 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314-2792
ph (703) 684-3600 x-372, fax (703) 836-4564
jlenard@cstorecentral.com; www.cstorecentral.com

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