Nel ASA’s Cash Cushion Offers Little Comfort as Orders Plunge 73%

Nel ASA faces a stark disconnect between its long-term ambitions and near-term reality. The Norwegian electrolyser specialist’s shares took a hit on Monday, dropping 7.4% on Tradegate to €0.32, while the Oslo-listed stock lost 2.43% to €0.34, as investors struggled with a dramatic shortfall in new business. The stock remains up 69% year-to-date, but the slide from its 52-week high of €0.36, reached just a week ago, underscores the fragility behind the rally.

The company’s first-quarter results laid bare the challenge. Customer revenue slipped 5% from a year earlier to NOK 148 million, and total revenue including other income came in at NOK 152 million, down from NOK 175 million. The EBITDA loss narrowed to NOK 100 million from NOK 115 million, pointing to better cost control. Yet the headline number that rattled the market was the order intake, which collapsed 73% to just NOK 85 million. The order backlog shrank 24% year-on-year to NOK 1.113 billion, and fell 16% from the previous quarter. For a company whose valuation depends on future hydrogen projects, that pattern spells trouble.

On the positive side, Nel holds a solid cash position of NOK 1.443 billion, providing a financial buffer. And the company has a potential game-changer in the pipeline: its new pressurised alkaline electrolyser platform, launched commercially in May, promises to cut system investment costs by 40–60% compared with current solutions. The EU Innovation Fund has awarded up to €135 million in grants, covering as much as 60% of the costs of building 1 GW of production capacity at Herøya, with a view to scaling to 4 GW. Strategically, the platform could be a catalyst, but for now, the order drought dominates the narrative.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nel ASA?

Technical analysis offers a mixed picture. Investing.com rated the stock a “Strong Buy” on June 1, supported by a MACD that flashed a buy signal at 0.080 and a 14-day RSI of 52.336, which is neutral. But the detail reveals hesitancy: four buy signals, three neutral, and three sell signals among the oscillators, while the moving averages were locked in a six-buy, six-sell stalemate. The short-term average of 3.82 gave a sell, while the longer 3.55 average gave a buy, suggesting the immediate momentum is less clean than the headline rating implies.

Institutional confidence, however, remains visible. The US-listed Global X Hydrogen ETF held 20.6 million Nel shares worth $8.59 million as of May 29, giving the stock a 5.12% weighting in the fund’s $167.96 million portfolio. That position signals that Nel still sits on the radar of dedicated hydrogen investors, even if the order book is not yet matching the narrative.

The next hard test comes on July 15, when Nel reports first-half results. A bump in order intake would validate the new platform’s traction; a further miss would widen the gap between chart-driven hope and operational reality. Until then, the stock will swing between its cash cushion and its order drought.

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