Nel ASA: Cash Reserves Provide Runway but Market Wants Order Conversion

Nel ASA shares fall 20% from 52-week high to €0.29; weak Q1 revenue and order backlog pressure the stock despite a promising Samsung partnership and neutral technicals.

Nel ASA’s shares have slipped to €0.29, extending a pullback that began after the stock hit a 52-week high of €0.37 on May 25. The hydrogen specialist is now down almost 20% from that peak and has shed 14% over the past week alone. Even so, the year-to-date advance remains substantial at 56%, and the technical picture is not yet flashing danger: the RSI sits at a neutral 50.4, with the share price still comfortably above both the 50-day moving average of €0.25 and the 200-day average of €0.21. That long-term uptrend, however, is facing a stiff test from deteriorating financial fundamentals.

The clearest sign of Nel’s commercial potential came at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam, where the company and Samsung E&A unveiled CompassH2-A+. The integrated solution pairs Nel’s pressurized alkaline electrolyzers in containerized 25-MW modules for a total capacity of 100 MW, producing about 40 tonnes of hydrogen per day at 99.999% purity while requiring 50% less space than comparable systems. Samsung, which already holds a 9.09% stake in Nel as its second-largest shareholder, is providing a full system guarantee covering everything from the stacks to the balance of plant. The collaboration reinforces the strategic logic behind the Korean industrial group’s investment, but the market is waiting for proof that such technology platforms will translate into hard orders.

That patience has been sorely tested by Nel’s first-quarter numbers. Revenue came in at 148 million Norwegian kroner, down 5% year-on-year, and EBITDA stood at minus 100 million kroner. The order intake of just 85 million kroner was especially weak, while the order backlog fell 24% from the prior-year period to 1.113 billion kroner. The company does have a cash cushion of 1.443 billion kroner to fund ongoing operations and strategy execution, but the narrowing pipeline raises the question of when the next major contract will materialize. Analysts currently forecast a per-share loss of 0.23 Norwegian kroner for the full year 2026, putting pressure on Nel to show a narrower deficit as the quarters progress.

A look at the Global X Hydrogen UCITS ETF explains why Nel is not yet commanding top billing among sector investors. As of June 3, Nel represented just 4.81% of the fund’s net assets, trailing far behind Bloom Energy (15.06%), Plug Power (14.12%), Doosan Fuel Cell (11.96%), Ballard Power Systems, Ceres Power, and ITM Power. The Norwegian company is present in the portfolio, but it is not a core holding—a sobering indicator of relative market strength within the hydrogen ecosystem. Institutional ownership is nonetheless broad, with Clearstream Banking acting as depositary for roughly 68% of shares, reflecting wide distribution among professional investors.

The next major catalyst comes on July 15, when Nel releases preliminary second-quarter results. That report will provide the first concrete indication of whether the Q1 slowdown was an anomaly or the start of a trend. The company also recently introduced a new pressure electrolysis platform designed to cut the cost of green hydrogen significantly. If the Samsung partnership can turn that technological advance into a visible order book, the stock’s year-to-date gains may hold. If not, the retreat from May’s high could deepen as the market waits—impatiently—for commercial proof.