Nel ASA's Two-Speed Story: An Order Book That's Growing While Revenue Shrinks

Nel ASA's Q2 2026 orders jump 224% but revenue falls 12%, EBITDA loss deepens, and CEO departure adds uncertainty.

The Norwegian hydrogen equipment maker Nel ASA is presenting investors with a puzzle that has no easy resolution. New business is flooding in at a remarkable clip, yet the money coming through the door is heading in the opposite direction — and the share price is reflecting that tension.

Orders booked in the second quarter of 2026 jumped 224 percent year-on-year to 230 million Norwegian kroner, lifting the total backlog to roughly 1.2 billion kroner. That headline figure suggests robust demand for the company's electrolyzer technology. But revenue from customer contracts fell 12 percent to 153 million kroner over the same period, and the EBITDA loss widened to minus 155 million kroner.

A one-off settlement with Japanese partner Iwatani added 70 million kroner to the damage. The legal truce, announced roughly eleven weeks ago, has since shaved 0.9 percent off the share price — a modest but telling reaction to a payout that underscored how far the company still is from sustainable profitability.

A Heavier Competitive Load

The timing is awkward on another front. HydrogenPro ASA, a domestic rival, published its own second-quarter figures on Thursday, flagging a pipeline of potential orders worth 300 million kroner. That serves as a pointed reminder that the Scandinavian electrolyzer market is getting crowded just as Nel works to defend its position.

Nel's response has been to double down on manufacturing scale. The company reiterated its commitment to lifting production capacity at its Herøya site to 500 megawatts by the end of 2026, with plans to double that again in 2027. The linchpin is the new PA series, a pressurized alkaline electrolyzer platform designed to bring the cost of turnkey 25-megawatt plants down to under $1,450 per kilowatt. A €135 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund is helping to cover part of the industrialization costs.

The strategic logic is clear: cheaper systems, built at scale, should make Nel more competitive against the likes of HydrogenPro. But the backlog, while healthy, sits at 1.21 billion kroner — still marginally below the year-earlier level — which suggests the order surge has yet to translate into a durable growth trajectory.

Leadership Uncertainty Compounds the Caution

Adding to the operational questions is a change at the top. CEO Håkon Volldal is stepping down after four years in the role, though he remains in place until year-end. No successor has been named, leaving investors to weigh the company's strategic direction without knowing who will be steering it.

The analyst community has already adjusted its expectations. JPMorgan cut its price target on Nel from 2.90 to 1.80 Norwegian kroner roughly two weeks ago, keeping a Neutral rating. That call, made in the wake of the weak revenue numbers and the Iwatani charge, captured the market's ambivalence at the time — though it is now several weeks old and should not be read as a current sentiment gauge.

A Stock Trapped in a Narrow Range

The share price tells its own story. Nel closed Friday at €0.1960, essentially flat on the day, but down 3.5 percent over the past month. The stock is trading below its 50-day moving average of €0.2049 and sits a full 46 percent beneath the 52-week high of €0.3655 reached in May. Over the past seven trading sessions, it has shed another 3.2 percent.

The company's balance sheet offers some breathing room — liquid assets stood at nearly 1.3 billion kroner at the end of the second quarter — which means management is not under immediate pressure to raise capital. That cushion buys time, but it does not resolve the central question: can the order intake be converted into revenue and, eventually, profit?

The next checkpoint arrives on October 21, when Nel publishes its third-quarter report. By then, investors will also be looking for clarity on the CEO succession. Until both questions are answered, the stock looks likely to remain caught between a promising pipeline and a profit-and-loss statement that has yet to catch up.