Big change is coming to Hale Street’s Broco Oil, owner Bob Brown tells WHAV. Two years after the company relocated its North Reading headquarters to Haverhill, Brown and the Broco Oil team of 50 employees are preparing to expand the oil terminal to bring in biodiesel by rail car starting in September using two formerly dormant railroad switches.
As a result, Brown’s expansion has brought new interest and activity into the Hale Street area, known as what he tells WHAV is a HUBZone: A Historically underused business district. According to Brown, city entrepreneurs are beginning to see benefits.
“It’s actually starting to support a lot of the local Haverhill businesses,” Brown tells WHAV. “Instead of having to import their goods by tractor-trailer from out of state, they can just pull it in off the railroad at our location.”
Brown, a fire captain in Chelsea, tells WHAV he hopes the incentives provided to businesses to partner with HUBZone companies will spur the Hale Street economy. “We’re hoping that all these guys on Hale Street and around the area that own businesses will be able to network onto the government platform where they have incentives to do business with HUBZone businesses,” Brown said.
Above all, says the small business owner, is concern for his customers.
“By adding percentages of biodiesel into our Massachusetts heating oil, we’re going to enable residents of the Merrimack Valley the ability to significantly lower their carbon footprint by using this type of biodiesel,” said Brown, who won a contract to fuel 500 generators for 110 days straight during the Merrimack Valley gas disasters in Andover, North Andover and Lawrence last fall.
Situated in the former Ronnie’s Oil space at 168 Hale St., Broco Oil serves 15,000 residential heating oil customers and expects to expand their oil terminal by Sept. 1.