London, June 18, 2002 – Texaco is taking its new Distributor Advantage Forum on the road as the company drives through its commitment to offer superior customer satisfaction.

Texaco held its second Distributor Advantage Forum (D.A.F.) at Wrest Park, Silsoe, Beds and will be moving on to Swindon for the next quarterly get-together as it travels around the UK. Texaco introduced D.A.F. at the beginning of the year, following the implementation of the wider Distributor Advantage programme, to bring branded distributors and Texaco management together to discuss ways of improving the overall distributor package and competitiveness in the market place.

The Distributor Advantage programme was created to ensure high standards of customer satisfaction and improve ties with branded distributors through training, planning and marketing support.

Open to all Texaco’s 106 European AD’s and ED’s, the Distributor Advantage Forum has already played a key role in decisions on new tanker livery, Distributor Extranet layout and content, value added initiatives, business content for the forthcoming AD conference and the new format for the five year AD contract.

The Distributor Extranet website, which will be officially launched in October, is exclusive to Texaco distributors and contains information on the latest news, supply chain initiatives, pricing, orders, tender bids, brand guidelines as well as new income opportunities such as discounts on gas, phone and insurance.

D.A.F. co-chairman Hugh Nicholl, of Nicholl Fuel Oils, said: "We are all very excited at the array of new initiatives being discussed within the Distributor Advantage Forum as these will help put the distributor network at the cutting age of fuel marketing for the next ten years. The Distributor Advantage Forum provides the necessary framework for us to develop what we believe will be the premier distributor network in Europe."