(Oslo, 3 April 2018) Nel ASA (Nel, OSE: NEL) announced today the decision to halt further work under the agreement with H2V PRODUCT (“H2V”), as H2V has made limited progress and has been unable to secure project financing. Nel experiences a significant global interest for hydrogen solutions across industries and will deploy its resources on other high-value projects. The discontinuation of the H2V project will not affect the reported order backlog of Nel.
“We are disappointed by the lack of progress and non-conclusive financing for the project, and we have therefore decided to utilize our business development-, engineering- and production capabilities on other projects“ says Jon André Løkke, CEO of Nel.
Nel has been promised final agreements and a pre-payment for many months. However, H2V has not been able to deliver according to agreed intentions and terms. In the notice to H2V, Nel has among other things emphasised its rights related to intellectual property. Consequently, any future initiative by H2V related to injecting hydrogen into the natural gas pipelines in France will need to be developed without the use of any information acquired through the process with Nel.
“We still believe in the power-to-gas market in Europe, and will continue to work with all the various initiatives within this field. In addition, Nel experiences a high interest for hydrogen solutions, as can be seen from the announcement earlier today, and we therefore choose to focus our limited resources on projects with good traction,” Løkke concludes.
Nel´s order backlog of NOK 465 million at the end of 2017 will not be affected by the discontinuation of the H2V project as the reported backlog only includes firm purchase orders. Nel reiterates that the company continues to evaluate significant expansions at the facility in Notodden to be able to deliver larger volumes and further reduce production costs.
