The construction of the Dudinka Port on the Yenisei began simultaneously with the start of the construction of the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant in July 1935. By 1936 the first port facilities were built. In 1982 the Dudinka port was awarded the status of a marine port. In 2007 the transport branch north of the Arctic Circle was created which today is part of Norilsky Nickel's commodity and logistical division.
Norilsky Nickel completed the creation of a fleet of Arctic container ships, one of the most ambitious ship-building investment projects in Russia, in 2009.
The company's fleet now comprises five diesel-electric driven ships operating on the Murmansk-Dudinka run on the Northern Sea Route and a new-generation Portovy-1 icebreaker tug.
Norilsky Nickel signed a contract for the construction of an Arctic ice-breaker Arc 7 tanker in February of 2010. The tanker will deliver fuel and lubricants to Dudinka and take away gas condensate extracted at the Pelyatkinsky gas condensate field.
In July 2010 the company's flagship, the diesel-electric Norilsky Nickel unloaded in Rotterdam its millionth ton of cargo carried since it was launched in April 2006. Since April 2006 Arctic container ships owned by Norilsky Nickel made 270 runs, transported 2.5 million tons of cargo, had worked four winter navigation seasons without calling in outside ice-breaker for help and called at the Dudinka sea port 135 times.