Kamarajar Port, formerly Ennore Port, is located on the Coromandel Coast, Chennai about 18 km north of Chennai Port. It is the 12th major port of India, and the first port in India which is a public company. The Kamarajar Port Limited is the only corporatised major port and is registered as a company. Chennai Port Trust acquired around 67% stake of Centre in the Kamarajar Port Limited on 27 March 2020. The remaining 23 percent was already held by the Chennai Port Trust.

The port has been able to attract an investment of ₹26,000 million by private entrepreneurs on various terminals and harbour craft. Kamarajar Port Limited, designed as Asia's energy port, is the first corporatised port in India and has only 86 employees. Envisaged being a satellite port to decongest and improve the environmental quality at the bustling Chennai Port, Kamarajar Port Limited is evolving itself into a full-fledged port with the capacity to handle a wide range of products. With a permissible draught of 13.5 m, the port handled a total volume of 11.01 million tonnes in 2010–11, up by 2.86 per cent from the previous year.

Ennore Port was originally conceived as a satellite port to the Chennai Port, primarily to handle thermal coal to meet the requirement of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), and was endowed with large chunks of land (about 2,000 acres). The scope was expanded taking into account subsequent developments such as the plan of Government of Tamil Nadu to set up a 1,880 mW LNG power project in association with a private consortium, a large petrochemical park and a naphtha cracker plant. Ennore Port was commissioned by the then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 1 February 2001. The port was set up under the Companies Act, keeping it outside the scope of the Tariff Authority for Major Ports, the tariff regulator for 11 of the 12 ports owned by the Indian government. The port was declared as a major port under the Indian Ports Act, 1908 in March 1999 and incorporated as the Ennore Port Limited under the Companies Act, 1956 in October 1999. Commercial operations commenced with Handymax geared vessels for unloading of thermal coal on 22 June 2001. With the deployment of self-unloading and gearless vessels of 65,000/77,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT), full-fledged operations were started in December 2002.

With the acquisition of about 440 hectares of land, the first phase of the port consisted of the construction of a coal jetty, a wharf and an entrance channel and related dredging operations. The main construction work included two berths for handling coal vessels up to 65,000 DWT, dredging for the approach channel and harbour basin, onshore civil works, navigational aids, and two breakwaters—4 km in the north side and 1 km in the south—close to the NCTPS and the Ennore Creek. In 2014, the port was officially renamed as Kamarajar Port.

Ennore Port lies on the northeastern corner of the Chennai City of Tamil Nadu State on a flat coastal plain known as the Eastern Coastal Plains. It is located on the east coast of the Indian peninsula known as the Coromandel Coast in the Bay of Bengal and is situated 2.6 km north of the Ennore Creek. Nearby railway station is Athipattu Pudunagar. Being coastal and situated on the thermal equator zone, the port experiences minimal variations in seasonal temperature ranging from a maximum of 38–42 °C in summer to a minimum of 18–20 °C in winter. The weather is hot and humid for most of the year, and the region features a tropical wet and dry climate. The northeast monsoon winds brings seasonal rainfall in the region from September to December, and occasionally cyclones. The annual rainfall in the region is about 1400 mm (55 in). The most prevailing winds are the southwesterly between April and October and the northeasterly during the rest of the year. The port is located on a region that falls under Seismic Zone III indicating a moderate risk of earthquake. The Ennore Creek in the south separates the port from the town of Ennore.

Commissioned in 2001 and operating on a landlord port concept, it is outsourcing all services required for operation and maintenance, and new terminals are being developed with the participation of the private sector. During the year of 2010–11, it handled a total cargo of 11.01 million tons. The port has effectively taken over all the ore movement from the Chennai Port. By 2016, the port is expected to have the capacity to handle over 80 million tons of cargo and its coal-handling capacity is expected to be about 43 million tons. The port is equipped to handle 16 million tonnes of coal per year from its two dedicated coal berths with 15 m alongside depth and staffed by TNEB, while its third berth promoted by Chettinad International Coal Terminal, is a common user facility that can handle 8 million tonnes per annum.

The approach channel to the port is 3,775 m long. The minimum depth of the entrance channel is 16 m below chart datum (BCD) and the minimum width is 250 m. The turning basin is 600 m in diameter with a minimum depth of 15.5 m BCD. The breakwaters in the port are of rubble-mound type with accropode armour protection. The northern breakwater measures 3,080 m and the southern breakwater measures 1,070 m.

The port has adequate road and rail links. The Port has obtained an in-principle approval from Southern Railways for providing rail connectivity to coal and iron ore stackyards. Ennore Port Limited (EPL) is also developing an 8-lane Northern Express Road, which would link the port with the National Highway No. 5. It has a 560-metre (1,840 ft)-long coal wharf for berthing two Panamax-size vessels and fully mechanised systems for handling 16 million tons of cargo a year. Designed as a world-class port, with two breakwaters—one in the north measuring 3,080 m (10,100 ft) and the other in the south measuring 1,070 m (3,510 ft) with a depth of 15 m (49 ft)—it has the capacity to develop 22 berths for handling a variety of bulk, liquid, and container cargo. The port is an artificial port with features including all-weather, round-the-clock operations and transport interface.