Cargo facilities are operated by Port Waratah Coal Services and Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group at Kooragang Island, as well as other operators at Mayfield, Carrington and Walsh Point.

In April 2014 Premier Mike Baird and Treasurer Andrew Constance announced that "a consortium which comprises Hastings Funds Management and Chinese state-owned China Merchants" had successfully bid $1.75 billion for a 98-year lease of the Port of Newcastle.

The Awabakal people were the inhabitants of Newcastle (Muloobinba) living around the harbour and foreshore prior to European contact.

Discarded shells of shellfish harvested by local clans for thousands of years formed enormous middens which were burned by Europeans to produce lime for building purposes.

Vessels have been recorded lost in and around the areas of Port Hunter, Hunter River, Nobbys Head, Stockton Bight, Stockton Beach (Newcastle Beach), Oyster Bank, Williams River and inland Raymond Terrace.