Northville terminal facilities sold to Pennsylvania-based United Refining Co. affiliate

Phillips is selling its Riverhead terminal to a Pennsylvania-based refining company.

In a joint news release issued yesterday, Phillips66 and United Riverhead Terminal Inc., an affiliate of United Refining Company of Warren, Pa., announced an agreement to transfer the marine petroleum terminal and associated assets in Northville.

The transaction is expected to close at the end of October depending upon regulatory approval, the company said. It did not disclose the terms of the sale.

The facility encompasses 280 acres and has over 5 million barrels of petroleum storage capability, according to the release. The Riverhead marine terminal is the only deepwater loading/unloading platform on the U.S. East Coast, capable of handling some of the largest oil tankers in use. In addition to the platform, the terminal has 20 bulk above-ground storage tanks, and eight truck loading bays, according to NYS DEC online records.

“We are pleased to add the Riverhead Terminal to our operations,” John Catsimatidis, chairman and CEO of United Refining Company said in the release. “We will be able to provide storage and terminaling services to a wide variety of customers throughout the world.”

United owns and operates a refinery in northwestern Pennsylvania, which produces a “a full range of petroleum products,” including unleaded gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, Number 2 home heating oil, industrial fuels, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), propane, and several grades of asphalts, according to the company’s website.

United processes an average of about 70,000 barrels per day of oil at its refinery, which operates 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

The company operates retail gasoline stations and owns terminals in Rochester, Tonawanda and West Seneca in upstate New York, and in Butler and Springdale Pa. It also owns an asphalt terminal in Cordova, Ala.

The Northville terminal facility was developed by Northville Industries Corp., beginning in the 1950s. The company was founded by Harold Bernstein. It built a pipeline and some of the bulk storage tanks on the site in the late 1950s. The off-shore platform came later, in the 1960s, said Riverhead Town Justice Allen Smith, whose father, Reginald C. Smith, represented Bernstein and his company.  

“Northville Industries was a force in the Riverhead community,” Smith said in a phone interview Wednesday. It bought the town’s first ambulance, he said. It purchased the Benjamin and Corwin houses on East Main Street, which today house East End Arts. The company donated the properties to the Town of Riverhead during Smith’s tenure as supervisor in the late 1970s.

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