## 4 Case Studies--Seaport of Aveiro in Portugal and ASM Offshore  
_Case Studies Description_  
The seaport of Aveiro is located in the district of Aveiro, inserted in a lagoon that constitutes the Ria de Aveiro. This is considered a competitive, effective, and sustainable port. It has excellent levels of productivity, responding to the most varied challenges. Being a recent port infrastructure, it has a well-ordered and integrated area, currently having 7 specialized terminals with about 4 km of wharf and 2 intermodal logistics zones [64]. The Port of Aveiro is well positioned, with a railway infrastructure connected to the railways of the Trans-European Transport Network. Considering the road access, the highways are lightly congested and connect the port to the main cities in the country and Spain. In addition to the various specialized terminals targeted at the various industrial sectors that the Port of Aveiro has, it also has an 80-hectare maritime logistics and industrial zone called ZALI (Zone of Logistics and Industrial Activities) (multimodal port logistics platform integrated in the Port of Aveiro) which is located in the northern sector of the port. ASM Industries is a holding company created in 2007 within the A. Silva Matos Group, a Portuguese metalworking industrial group, founded in Sever do Vouga, in 1980. Over the years, the A. Silva Matos (ASM) group has operated fundamentally in sectors such as food, oil, and gas, through the manufacture of storage tanks and other steel and pressure equipment. In addition, it has applied efforts in logistics solutions, such as road tanks and containers for sea and rail transport. This holding company decided to apply its knowledge and invest in manufacturing capacity, job creation, and projects related to renewable energies. In this sequence, the creation of ASM Industries arose, with the objective of creating industrial capacity and diversifying the group's activity in the renewable energy sector. This holding company operated particularly in the wind energy industry, through the development of steel structures, such as wind towers and offshore foundations, and also in the marine renewable energy sector (waves and tides) and offshore aquaculture, through the design of marine structures. Based on the experience of this company in the sale of metal equipment, ASM Industries has positioned itself as a reference supplier, with high levels of quality and competitiveness across Europe. With the growth of this group in the market for equipment for the production of wind energy, in 2007, ASM Energia was invited to join the consortium ENEOP (Eolicas de Portugal), in which it had to invest in a new manufacturing unit specialized in wind towers for onshore application. During the next five years, the company saw growth and success, with a social and economic impact, fulfilling all its sales objectives. In this section, we intend to investigate the potential of the Port of Aveiro, as a welcoming entity for an offshore wind energy cluster, considering the market for this energy, as well as the types of clusters and seaports related to it. Furthermore, considering the location of ASM Offshore at ZALI in the Port of Aveiro and the fact that it is a company that belongs to the offshore renewable energy sector, it is included in this work as a case study. With the analysis of this company, it is intended to infer what its position is in the offshore renewable energy market and what the advantages of its presence in the Port of Aveiro are, in order to envisage the benefits of the port in hosting a group of companies in the same branch for the formation of the cluster. ASM Offshore serves as an anchor to the Port of Aveiro considering the offshore wind energy market, given that it has knowledge, high technology integrated in this activity and has the ability to influence business decisions and the location of several companies, qualified suppliers and customers, required for the formation of the cluster.