Nel ASA Soars 14% to New High Amid €1.09 Billion EU Hydrogen Boost — But Analysts Stay on the Sidelines

Nel ASA stock jumps 14% to a fresh 52-week high, driven by EU Hydrogen Bank subsidies and new electrolyser tech, but analysts remain bearish on weak fundamentals and revenue decline.

Nel ASA stormed to a fresh 52-week high on Friday, adding nearly 14% in a single session to close at €0.33. The run carried the stock more than 83% above its March trough of €0.18 and pushed year-to-date gains past 70% — a remarkable recovery for a company whose underlying earnings remain under pressure. The move was backed by conviction: trading volume more than doubled the daily average, a sign that institutional buyers were driving the charge.

The catalyst did not come from Oslo, but from Brussels. The European Commission’s Hydrogen Bank awarded roughly €1.09 billion to nine production projects across Europe, targeting almost 1.1 GW of electrolyser capacity. While Nel was not a direct beneficiary, the sheer scale of the subsidy pipeline signals robust demand growth for the entire sector. The company had already laid the groundwork in early May with the unveiling of its new generation of pressurised alkaline electrolysers, developed over more than eight years at its Herøya facility in Norway.

The new platform targets industrial green-hydrogen projects with a turnkey full-cost benchmark of under $1,450 per kilowatt for a 25 MW plant, delivering hydrogen at 30 bar pressure and 99.99% purity. Nel claims the system can cut customer investment costs by between 40% and 60% versus comparable market solutions. The Herøya factory is designed to ramp up to 1 GW of annual production capacity initially, with a stated pathway towards 4 GW. Near-term, the company expects to receive an €11 million EU grant for the facility in the second quarter.

Despite the product progress, the operational picture tells a different story. First-quarter revenue slipped 5%, and order intake slumped to just 85 million Norwegian kroner. Nel is also grappling with legacy costs: management is reviewing the book value of two idled production lines, and a further impairment would add to last year’s hefty writedowns. The disconnect between share price and fundamentals has not gone unnoticed by professional investors. Analysts remain uniformly bearish: Berenberg and Citigroup recently trimmed their price targets to 2.30 and 2.40 kroner respectively, and all seven analysts covering the stock rate it a sell.

Technically, the rally has extended the stock well beyond its moving averages — the share now trades roughly 43% above its 50-day average and almost 60% above the 200-day line. Yet the relative strength index sits at approximately 28, a reading that typically signals oversold conditions, reflecting the extreme velocity of the move. The 30-day annualised volatility has topped 100%, a measure of how turbulent trading has become. All three trend durations — short, medium and long — are now classified as bullish, with the next resistance level pegged at around 4.29 kroner and support near 2.88 kroner.

The next major test comes on 15 July, when Nel ASA reports its half-year results. By then the market will demand evidence that the new electrolyser platform is translating into binding customer contracts. The chief executive has confirmed ongoing negotiations on both sides of the Atlantic, but with the stock riding a wave of policy euphoria and zero analyst support, the burden of proof lies squarely with management.