Nel ASA’s third-quarter 2026 report, released on 15 October, lays out a company pulling in two directions at once. Revenue from customer contracts fell 63% year on year to NOK 112 million, yet order intake climbed 339% to NOK 253 million. For investors, the question is no longer whether demand exists — it is whether Nel can convert that demand into revenue and, eventually, into a result.
The PEM segment is where the growth lives. Sales there rose 65% to NOK 89 million, a bright spot against an otherwise grim quarter. Alkaline told the opposite story: revenue collapsed 91%, leaving just NOK 23 million on the top line. The two figures together explain why headline revenue shrank so sharply — PEM’s advance simply could not cover the alkaline shortfall. Judging Nel on its PEM growth rate alone would obscure the weakness at group level.
Profitability remains under heavy pressure. EBITDA came in at NOK -93 million, and the net loss reached NOK -141 million. Those numbers underline that a broader operational recovery has yet to materialise, regardless of how strong the order book looks.
Orders Build a Pipeline, Not a Profit
Group-wide order intake jumped 339% to NOK 253 million, while the order backlog grew 34% to NOK 1.314 billion. Within PEM, intake surged 473% to NOK 245 million. Those figures strengthen the case for future deliveries — but bookings are not realised revenue. Given how weak the reported quarter was, execution on those orders is the decisive next step.
Fresh support for the PEM business arrived roughly a week before the quarterly release, when subsidiary Nel Hydrogen US announced an order for several containerised PEM electrolysers plus services, valued at around USD 12 million. Delivery is expected in 2027 — a timeline that makes plain why new orders do not immediately lift current earnings.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nel ASA?
Leadership Handover Meets the Hard Part
The already-announced management change lands squarely in this unsettled period. Morten Holum is to succeed Håkon Volldal as CEO, taking the role no later than 1 May 2027. CFO Kjell Christian Bjørnsen will hold the reins on an interim basis from 1 November 2026. Volldal steps away from his operational duties at the end of October 2026.
Whoever sits in the chair faces the same test: turning stronger PEM demand into revenue while overcoming the alkaline slump. The latest figures offer better order signals, but no proof of a group-wide turnaround. Distinguishing between the two matters more for the share price than any single growth rate.
The bull case rests on whether Nel can translate its fuller pipeline into sales — and whether those sales eventually show up in the result. If orders keep flowing but revenue stays weak, or if demand loses momentum, the optimistic reading loses its footing. A revenue recovery alone would not settle the matter either; with EBITDA still deeply negative, any upbeat valuation continues to lean on better business down the road. The risk is reading an order improvement as an operational turning point too soon.
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