Nel ASA wiped out nearly all of its spring rally in a single brutal week as a 73% collapse in new orders crushed the momentum that had carried the stock to a 52-week high just days earlier. Shares closed at €0.26 on Friday, down 12.79% for the session and 26% over seven trading days, even as the company unveiled a next-generation alkaline platform developed with its largest shareholder, Samsung E&A.
The disconnect between product innovation and commercial traction has rarely been starker. Nel commercially launched a new pressurised alkaline electrolyser in May after eight years of development and prototype testing at Herøya. The system promises turnkey costs below $1,450 per kilowatt and a 40–60% reduction in capital expenditure versus existing market solutions. Yet investors are no longer rewarding technology announcements without the order book to back them up.
The first-quarter numbers delivered the harshest signal. Nel reported customer-contract revenue of 148 million Norwegian kroner, roughly 5% below the prior-year period. EBITDA improved by 15 million kroner year-on-year but remained deep in negative territory at minus 100 million kroner. The real shock, however, was order intake of just 85 million kroner – a 73% plunge from the first quarter of 2025. That brought the order backlog to 1.113 billion kroner, down 24% year-on-year and 16% sequentially.
Management has acknowledged that the current backlog is insufficient to keep the factory properly utilised in 2027. That admission has become the soft underbelly of Nel’s investment case, even as the company strengthens its technological hand through the Samsung partnership.
Samsung’s big bet on bankability
At the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam, Nel and Samsung E&A unveiled CompassH2-A+, an industrial-scale solution for pressurised alkaline electrolysis. The system is designed for 100-megawatt installations using containerised stack modules of 25 MW, producing hydrogen at 15 barg while cutting the facility footprint by 50% compared with alternative offerings.
For project developers, the architecture’s real innovation lies in the guarantee structure. Samsung E&A bundles electrolyser stacks, balance-of-plant equipment and utilities under a single performance warranty with one counterparty – a direct response to the fragmented warranties that have dogged project financing in the hydrogen sector. A long-term service agreement covers operations, scheduled stack replacement and real-time monitoring.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nel ASA?
The alliance runs deep. Samsung E&A holds a 9.1% stake in Nel and now sits on the company’s board. The South Korean engineering group is Nel’s largest single shareholder and has a direct interest in seeing the platform gain commercial traction.
Small orders, big expectations
There have been flickers of life in Nel’s order pipeline since the quarter closed. In late April, Nel Hydrogen US won a roughly $7 million contract for PEM electrolysers from an American utility. Earlier that month, a similar-sized order came from Mesure Process, a subsidiary of Synqo Energies, for a European project targeting a 2027 start-up. In March, Nel commissioned an off-grid green hydrogen reference plant in Korea for its alkaline platform, and a follow-on order for containerised PEM units worth about 70 million kroner has already been booked for the current quarter.
Each of these deals demonstrates that commercial demand exists, but none moves the needle against the scale of the order book shortfall. The market is waiting for a statement order – one that validates the CompassH2-A+ platform at meaningful volume.
Nel’s financial position does buy time. The company ended the first quarter with 1.443 billion kroner in cash – roughly 1.4 billion when rounding is applied – providing a multi-year runway even if order conversion remains sluggish. Two Global X hydrogen ETFs hold a combined 30 million Nel shares, with the US fund weighting the stock at 5.12% and the European vehicle at 5.13% as of late May. That thematic demand provides a structural backstop but is no defence against a fundamental reassessment of the business.
The next verdict: 15 July
Technically, Nel closed Friday exactly on its 50-day moving average of €0.26, a level that has become a short-term reference point after the retreat from the 25 May high of €0.37. The relative strength index of 40.5 suggests no extreme oversold condition, but the annualised volatility of 105% underscores how quickly sentiment can shift.
The stock still trades 35% higher year-to-date and sits 22.5% above its 200-day line – a reminder that the correction is hitting a name that had run hard. The hard test arrives on 15 July with the half-year report. A two-week blackout period begins at the start of July, during which management will go quiet. By then, the question will be whether CompassH2-A+ has begun converting the Samsung platform into purchase orders. If the order line shows genuine improvement, the rally gains a foundation. If it stays weak, the sell-off will start looking less like an overreaction and more like a re-rating of what Nel is actually worth today.
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