Hydrogenpro As

Good morning. Today, I am accompanied by Martin Holter, who will present the financials, and Michael Casperson, who will give an update on markets outlook. As introduction, what does Hydro-N-Pro do? Hydro-N-Pro develops, manufactures, and sells and commissions equipment for green, carbon-free hydrogen production. As an original equipment manufacturer, the company's focus is on its core technology, well suited for renewable energy sources. High pressure alkaline electrolysis and gas separation skids are our core product. We address markets for decarbonization of selected large scale industries. Segments already using gray hydrogen or where decarbonization is hard to achieve through electrification. I will not go into details on pros and cons for the most common technologies for splitting water and produce carbon-free hydrogen, but highlight hydrogen pros focus on technology for driving down the levelized cost of hydrogen. With our unique and proprietary electrode technology, we reduces the operational cost by lower energy need in the hydrogen production. First, our electrode represent lower capex as we use no noble metals, which by the way, increases continuously in price. Secondly, the electrodes are more efficient using less energy, reducing the production cost of hydrogen, And we deliver pressurized electrolyzers, which is very responsive to variations from renewable energy sources. I do notice that some colleagues are also developing pressurized systems. We have installed 220 megawatt and are in process of installing another 100 megawatt of pressurized electrolyzers. The projects we have installed are among the largest green hydrogen projects in the world, and very few other OEMs have similar references, which is one of the first things prospect customers are asking. Four milestones have defined the first quarter. Hydrogen Pro and Longy have agreed on optimizing its manufacturing footprint, entering into a joint strategic OEM agreement. We will therefore, until further strategic steps, mothball the Tianjin plant. The ACES project is under commissioning and for us, going into service support. Development of our electrolyzer and electro technology is continuously high on our agenda. We see strong progress from the dedicated work on developing, testing, and documenting performance, where we are now reaching world-class results. Things do take time, and I must admit it has taken longer than I expected, to reach FID on some ongoing projects in negotiations. However, we still expect FIDs throughout 2026 and 2027. Execution on technology, partnerships, and cross-discipline positions Hydron Pro for 2026 order intake. The OEM agreement with Lungi offers larger capacity, cost savings on fixed as well as on direct cost, based on shared capacity utilization and high automation. This cooperation makes Hydro-N-Pro more competitive. Although we will be producing in Lungi's state of the art factory, Hydrogen Pro will have our key quality and operational leadership at site, and Hydrogen Pro's well-recognized production data and quality system is being implemented. I will also point out that agreement is a production agreement, where we will continue to deliver our own proprietary technology, which is developed and tested in Norway and in Denmark. The electrical development and production is continuing in Denmark. For the European market, we will continue assembly in Andritsch Airport Plant in Germany. The corporations are representing a cost-effective and asset-light model. Our partnerships enables a broader reach and wider offering to projects in addition to bankability on large-scale projects. Through the partnerships, we have full scope offering at local presence. Common for all partners is that they are committed to energy transition and green hydrogen. They represent a broader delivery scope and gives bankability towards the customers and access to strong technical and engineering resources. The ACES project is a flagship project where the support from Mitsubishi is now offering a reference site for our new potential customers. One of the first questions new prospects are raising is Do you have any large-scale references and can we see it in operation? Not many OEMs can answer. Yes, we do. Currently, all 40 electrolyzers have been operated at full load, gone through numerous starts and stops and testing of load variations. The electrolyzers are operating stable and consistently. The ACES Phase 1 project is using 30% hydrogen in its power generation to degrade. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Intermountain Power Project are now in preparation for next stages, which, when realized, will increase to first 67% later 200% hydrogen content, meaning Phase 1 will be copied two more times. Product development and product improvements are prioritized activities, where performance and cost are the main focus. Our electrolyzers have always been robust, stable and consistent, which we have tested out on our installations. They have gone through numerous starts, stops, and load variations without any negative impact on performance or degradation. Over the two years, we have now developed the new electrodes without any noble metals, showing a massive improvement in current efficiency. If we look at the graph on the right, we see the latest improvements towards 95% current efficiency at 100% load. However, electrolysis are not always operated at 100% load and will normally lose efficiency at lower loads. Many OEMs will give high current efficiency figures, but only at 100% load. If we look at the upper curves, we see a very small loss in efficiency between 100 and 30% load. To achieve the results shown in the graph, we are focused on interior stack design to reduce loss of energy when producing hydrogen. Improving electrodes, both efficiency performance and reduced degradation. and also reduce the steel weight of the electrolyzer to reduce the capex. The result is now that we can operate with higher current density and get more gas out per kilowatt hour at lower cell voltage. All in all, reduced cost of hydrogen for the customers. And we are not stopping here. We are continuously improving our stack design and electrode chemistry to deliver high efficiency stacks and high gas quality. For the continuation of 2026, we are focusing on three main priorities. Convert the pipeline to orders and build backlog. Deliver and handover of the reference projects including electrode development and maintaining financial discipline. Based on the current interest from project developers, customers, and stakeholders, we are now initiating a strategic review in light of potential future projects, the company's liquidity position, and the general development. The company has therefore engaged a financial advisor to assist in ongoing strategic discussions and to evaluate potential financing alternatives. However, there can be no assurance that the strategic review will result in any transaction or other specific outcome. And I will now hand over the presentation to Martin.

Thank you, Jarle. I will now then walk you through the Q1 2026 financials. So we are continuing to deliver on the Salkos order and doing now some on-site work at the ACES site. So in the quarter, we generated revenues of 16 million kroner. And net of direct materials, the gross profit stood at 10 million, which then equates to a 62% gross margin. And the uptick in the margin compared to the previous quarter is mainly due to the fact that we are delivering high margin components. And then, of course, with on-site services being a high margin business. Looking at the personnel costs, it was stable with 30 million compared to meaning at the same level as in the fourth quarter. Other operating expenses was at 11 million, down 5 million compared to the fourth quarter. And this is driven by two main factors. There was a reversion of previous provision in the quarter, and which we also do see now the impact of continued cost measures throughout the company. So with this, the EBITDA came in at minus 32 million, and the net loss was at 41 million in the quarter. Then let's look into development in the liquidity position in the quarter. So the cash balance at the start of the first quarter was 102 million kroner, and it ended at 56 million. So the key changes in the liquidity were as follows. The EBITDA was at minus 32 million. There were changes in networking capital of 50%. some minus 10 million and minus 10 million impact on the cash. We continue to invest in Denmark, and we capitalise on 3 million of investments on the production line there in the quarter. And we have a total budget for that facility of 60 million, where 50 million is now, as of the end of the first quarter, used for that. But importantly, the manufacturing line is fully operational. We are delivering on the SALCO's order and the remaining investments that are related out to further improvements to increase the manufacturing activity. The backlogs to that 252 million at the end of the quarter, down from 275 million at the end of the fourth quarter. I often show a slide to convey the message that cost discipline is really in the backbone of our company. Last year, we took out costs of more than 50 million Norwegian kroner. And given, as Jarl also presented, given that the market is somewhat slower in terms of reaching FIDs, We are now continuing with new measures. So now with the OEM agreement with Lungi, we are downsizing our operations and cost base in China. In Europe, we have salary freeze and also the management has taken voluntarily takeouts. On top of that, some employees have been temporarily laid off in Europe. And finally, we are executing group-wide cost measures, including reducing office rental costs, reduced use of consultants, travel costs, etc. All in all, these measures, now the additional measures, will have an annual savings impact of some 20 million. So with that, I will now give the word to Mikael to give an update on the markets.

Thank you, Martin. So as the first quarter of 2026 has now passed, it allows us to take a step back and just summarize some of the observations we see out there in the field from the first part of the year. So to reflect a bit on what's happening now and what we see, it's a bit a continuation of what we presented for the last quarter in the sense that The market situation and the drive, the trends, they continue. It was back in the previous quarter. A tale of two stories, meaning that there are some opposite directed observations. That still holds true. We see that the projects are fighting and in some cases struggling to meet FID timelines, the targets that are set, while also at the same time, bigger and more healthy projects are on the way. And this is all across the board. It's in all the markets that we observe and we plan. So it's a general theme, but it both means that there are stories around projects waiting and projects progressing and being larger than they were before. So we do see a more healthy project pipeline in general coming on the way. And we do see that the hydrogen industry is showing these positive signs that we also started observing in 25. So although it's too soon to say that we're out of the woods with regards to maybe previous unrealistic expectations on the timeline shaping this industry, we feel and we see that this is heading forward and then progressing in similar pace. So the net result is positive. It is moving forward. and we see the sizes and the pipeline growing in general. These signals we observe are of different shapes and forms, but they do give us comfort that this net result is indeed great strides forward rather than standing still or even moving backwards as it was a few years ago. There are mainly three overall clear signals that we can address here. So regulation is the main driver in our industry. So it's for decarbonization, but increasingly so also for the theme of resilience in energy systems worldwide. The situation in the Middle East, for example, is very much the one we have at present now. Not a short-term unlock, but it unlines the criticality of an alternative energy mix at hand. And it does spur also political attention to have resilience on broad energy solutions. On the project side or the market side, projects have indeed fallen back in 23, 24, and continued into 25 to some degree. And there have been postponements. And few of these still happen in 26, but to a much lesser degree than before. There is a tectonic shift compared to a few years back towards healthy projects. where the fundamentals are really scrutinized in a different way now to build a solid business case. That's evident from our talks with our clients. You could say that there are more of the right questions being asked now and being discussed. So in these discussions, our clients increasingly talk about when things will happen rather than if. And that's a shift in the narrative compared to these maybe a few years back. Obviously our clients still look to optimize every bit of a possible revenue on project level. So that very much focuses on reaping the benefits of the regulatory upsides and potential stacking of financial support that comes out of it. That's probably the main reason for some of these shifts. But we do see when that happens as well, it opens up for new opportunities and new prospects and opportunities are also entering our pipeline. And they do this in this quarter. So counting only for the start of 2026. This happens across all our key regions from east to west. So it's the markets that we play in and that we focus on. It's the Americas, it's through Europe, it's the MENA region and it's specific locations in Asia. So that is all very, very positive indeed. And even they come from some unexpected angles. And we are in a favorable lead position still, as mentioned before, on around this 1 billion knock on already established positions. They are still active. They are still in play. And they are counting on a 12-month rolling forecast. I'll come back to this in just a second. But to dive a bit into the different factors and signals that we see here. The political agenda first and foremost. It's important for our industry to shape a functional market design. That needs to happen. We can draw some analogies here made to other green industry that has maybe on a timeline happened before us and progressed. So other green industries where regulation helps to form a level playing field where a free market and competition can then take its course. You could mention wind in the 90s and the zeros. biogas in the 2010s, 2020s. They're good examples of something that is decade long establishment of efficient and mature markets, and even still maturing. Regulation, I said it already, it's the main driver of the industry. And it is therefore very encouraging to see that, especially with Europe as the front runner, we keep taking steps forward for functional hydrogen ecosystem. So just this quarter, there has been uplifting news. On the production side, this is where EU has supported the strongest and focused most in the previous years. The European hydrogen bank ran its third auction with grants to support more than a gigawatt of electrolyzer capacity. That has for sure been needed to promote on supply side and has been happening so throughout the last couple of years. Now, however, offtake maturity is what we identify as the main gating factor for reaching financial goals. And there are very good and practical examples now that how we can mention Germany probably is now one of the front runners here on how end users can now obtain indeed very favorable terms for signing off on renewables and green hydrogen to using their energy consumption on a daily level and do so without a loss. So in this regard, Germany is now one of the locations that we see really pushing this agenda and making it concrete. The match mechanism helps connect supply and demand in a structured manner and increasing transparency. This is new and it helps to surface both price levels and gaps between the supply and demand side. So they can be optimized in a commercial setting. And this is new, and this is very positive. That's needed to close the delta that has been existing and is still existing. There is also a sense of pragmatism from the European Union, which I personally find extremely encouraging. So we show, or it's being shown to decision makers that the decision makers are actually taking market feedback into consideration. And to be clear, the jury is out on this, but an early review of the RF and BO requirements related to RET3, the Renewable Energy Directive, is on the board. And this is a clear signal and a way to lessen the restrictions on the industry in order to make and facilitate more easy project development. So pragmatism, I believe, is something that the EU has perhaps not been the most known for, but this I find very positive. All in all, very clear signals that the EU wants the industry to succeed and some measures that will inevitably lead into impact in the market. There is no turning back at this point, no backtracking. I want to turn attention now towards the global picture of how projects are developing. So if we consider the global hydrogen pipeline, there is better coverage than before on project information, so down to project level on the characteristics and how they're set up and the infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. So that gives us more insights. And there are some notes with the findings. For projects that are in the near FID state. So shorter term, close to high maturity. It's all been about China for years. And to some extent, still is. China is leading on this front. But midway through the pipeline, there begins to be a bit of a rearrangement. Europe takes over as the lead. But otherwise, we also start to see more fragmentation. So a broader fragmentation. range of applications that come into play. And even earlier in the funnel, that feature is only enhanced. So other locations that actually have really great fundamentals for low cost hydrogen production could become more prominent. And now the early part of the funnel naturally also lies further out in time as a general rule of thumb. And so there is time to adapt to this situation. However, that evolves over the years as the first part of it. But overall, if this outlook here is any view for a proxy of how the green hydrogen landscape is evolving over the coming years, then Hydrogen Pro is really well positioned on the short-medium term here, playing active roles in the major markets. So meanwhile, the dominating role of China evens out and spreads out. We will be ready to take our fair share of the market in a global market setting. Before moving on, one thing I want to dwell on a bit is the particular slice of the pie here with rest of APAC. So there's already now taking over a good portion of the advancing projects. There are different locations in play here, but specifically I want to draw attention to one of the fastest growing markets with probably the highest potential, and that is India. What makes India interesting and worth noting and worth having a high interest in for hydrogen pro is big ambitions on governmental level. It's great fundamentals for low hydrogen cost production, including a buildup of renewables to support it. And it's a vast potential as well for an internal market. So you have a lot of the ingredients needed in order to build a really sufficient and promising production hub for green hydrogen, whatever the use case is. So in other words, really, India have expressed a really need for a turnaround. So that's the driving force here. And it's strong. It's really strong. And the question becomes, of course, if this will actually be realized to the fullest. And we don't know. We will have to see. But even if we only for the 2030 vision that is mentioned here, If we only even get halfway there, this is the place to be, then it's a really big potential. Because the project pipeline in India, it's been progressing. And Hydrogen Pro is now also in contest for projects that are well into several hundred megawatts. That's happening right now as we speak in the first rollout wave of projects in India. As a contender in this market, We believe that we are well positioned for the next wave subsequently also. So there's a timing element here, and there's a strategic rationale behind focusing closely on this market. And we've set up through our partnership with Thermax in a way that we now, in a combined manner, have a really compelling offer in India. So we're best in class on the offering around the price and performance ratio, on quality that we bring in from Europe, locally for town marks and their knowledge in the market. And this also goes with a local delivery and a support model from a local strong EPC player that has a track record. So it's the best of two worlds and it's what our clients in the end often highlight as one of the upsides in general for our partnerships. If you have a chance to shortcut some of these frictions that could occur between the OEM and the EPC players, Why wouldn't you go for that? So, but in India, we have a focused approach towards the high momentum applications. And these are closer to being bankable, and these are in demand. We mentioned here, refinery and e-fuels as the two big buckets that are probably having the highest momentum. These are just a few mentions, and there are further of them. But India is moving, and we have a role to play there. So for this reason, India and Indian prospects are naturally also part of our pipeline now and is actually helping indeed to grow the volume of our pipeline in general. As I mentioned, we are in the race for specific opportunities for 2026. So this is a zero to six, six to 12 kind of timeline here. And of course, no guarantees for a new player in the market. but with the offering we have on the table, we feel very well positioned and that we bring true value to potential clients. In general, on the pipeline, I want to just reiterate a few observations that is related to the overall view and build up of our pipeline. So I've Mention briefly, but opportunities that we have seen coming in just in 2026 now, these emerge all over geographically. It's from east to west, and it's portraying a much stronger commercial standing than what we saw some years back, where there were often some real question marks around the bankability for whatever reason. So geographically coverage, I think, is a positive thing. we are able to and have been able to grow our pipeline with both early stage naturally, but also with the projects that are further into stage where we enter competition later down the road. So near FID or somewhere between feed and FID potential. So that's in a timeframe that is not years away. And as I just mentioned in some situations are on the 2026 horizon. Compared also to when we exited 2025, our pipeline has increasingly diversified. So it's in terms of our partner outreach and coverage. That is a true factor here as well, that I find very positive and gives us resilience and lower our risk in general. All the partnerships that we now have, have concrete commercial opportunities to pursue. That was different from a year ago or even exiting 2025. So that makes it possible for us to grow the pipeline in volume and in relevant segments and locations. So it's from a broad range of solutions. And this is all the way from small containerized solutions up to several hundred megawatts like the ACES project that you saw before. So it opens up for a broader set of use cases and applications that also require different solutions. And we can then play that game better than before. If we zoom in on the end stage of the formula, we are still at the late negotiation stages for the previously mentioned project, this cluster of a handful of projects that amounts to around a billion NOC on the next 12-month timeframe. Here, it should be noted we're not accounting for new and for other existing opportunities that have progressed since then. from earlier. So everything else beyond this cluster within the next six to 12 months timeframe is actually excluded here and considered a potential upside. This may be for the reason that technology supply is yet to be chosen. We participate, but there's still a round or two to go. And finally, Final note to some of the questions that we often have. It's just worth restating here what we guide on and what we do not guide on. We, of course, help to give an overview broadly of the direction of the potential of our pipeline in general to assess the commercial state. But we do not hand out details around specific projects or partnerings or specific clients along the stages. So with that in mind, that basically concludes our discussion and our presentation for now. And we will hand over and open for our Q&A session.

Yes, so audience has come up with some questions. The first one, what are the conditions for the 16.5 million Euro grant for electrodes of EU Innovation Fund? That was October 2024 news. Who filled and when do you expect to receive the grant?

Okay, so that grant is then subject to a completion of a new investment in Denmark, which I presented in previous quarterly presentations. So that will then, if we decide to go ahead with that, that will be a leap in terms of our future manufacturing capacity of our electrodes. That particular grant is then, well, sort of the funds flow on that is then subject to completion of that investment. It will be paid afterwards. So for that facility to be built, we will need to pre-fund that through other sources.

Next one. What was the headcount as of Q1 2026?

So the end of the first quarter, we were around 90 people in the company. I think the exact number was 91. We presented some cost measures that we are sort of now executing on, and that will mainly impact the number of employees in China, right, connected to the OEM agreement with Longjing. So our head count in Tianjin will now go down significantly during the quarter in line with sort of upscaling all that new contract we're launching. On top of that, we also presented that we have made some temporary layoffs. So you will start to see sort of the impact of the staff reduction now from this quarter and onwards during this year.

So what is the current operating cost base after downsizing China and the temporary layoffs in Europe? What cash burn do you expect for Q2 and Q3?

Okay, so we're not sort of guiding specifically on the cash burn, but that said, I think sort of starting point is I can look into our Q1 report. And that gives a fair representation of the productivity level in the company and the cash burn as well. So looking there at sort of the personal expenses of 30 million in the quarter, and then the operational or the operating costs that was at 11 million in the quarter, that gives sort of a a representation of the underlying fixed cost base, but it also includes some of the cost measures, right? There are some workers in Denmark included in the payroll who are now delivering on the focus order and the downsizing in China. In addition to also the salary reductions in Europe, So the totality is that we are targeting an annual cost saving in excess of 20 million or, say, 2 million per month. So if the starting point in the first quarter was some 40, 45 million, you can then take out 2 million approximately per month.

A question regarding DigiFuse. DigiFuse seems to use blue hydrogen for its first project. Is there any potential with DigiFuse to combine the blue and the green hydrogen as the Samsung feed study implied? If so, how advanced?

So the DG Fuel project is still in the application stage at the Department of Energy in the United States in order to loan certificates. The planning is to use a mix of gray and green hydrogen. So they have been approved access of some 200 megawatts of green energy supply, electricity, which will go into green energy production. So approximately 200 megawatts of green energy is planned for the Louisiana project.

I think all of that is a blue hydro in combination with wind. Okay.

And could you also shed more light on the new OEM agreement with Lange?

So Lange has invested in a very, I would say, modern and efficient and automated system production facility. As we know, there is a lot of capacity for electrolysing production. So it makes sense to consolidate the capacity and get a higher utilization. So what we are then gaining here is that we get access to a more optimized operation. needing less operators per electrolysis being produced. We are installing our quality systems, which is well recognized by customers visiting us. We are implementing our standard operating procedures for how to do things. And we are also posting signs and Hydrogen Pro logo in the production facility. So the customers coming visiting, they will experience Hydrogen Pro site. But we are taking advantage of the cost optimizations. And we are also not sharing the technology as such in certain parts. of the operations are in separate locked areas for only hydrogen pro qualified people to enter. So it's, I would say it's basically a contract where we have lower investments, asset light, more efficient and lower cost production and access to more capacity so we can deliver faster.

A technical question. What are the different lines on the right-hand side on page 11 of the presentation? So that was the hydrogen product development slide.

So on the y-axis, you have what we call the specific energy consumption. In other words, how much of the electricity put into hydrogen production goes to hydrogen. There are always losses in the system, and there's also a barrier, basically, physically, how high you can go. So you cannot go to 100%. Getting beyond 95% is very challenging. So there will be some losses. So this is the specific energy consumption. you are using for producing the hydrogen. On the x-axis, you have the load, energy load that you put in. So basically an electrolyzer is designed for a certain energy load it can take. And for the, it was a little bit small, but for maybe some of the viewers saw that it was not stopping at 100% load. It was also going to 110 and 115%. It means that you have the capability, the possibility of putting more energy into the system than what is normally defined as the ideal 100% stage. But you will not always have full availability of energy according to the design. So you are slowing down the amount of of energy put in. It's a little bit like when you're driving a car. How hard are you pressing the speeder when you are driving a fuel-based car? So the point I was trying to make is that as you go down in load, the efficiency will also go down. You will lose the specific amount of energy you are using. And this is what we are doing with our new development. There are also other ways, obviously, to measure both the energy consumption and the efficiency in terms of current, excuse me, I'm losing my specific current consumption and shunt currents, of course. But this is a simple way of demonstrating the effect of the electrodes. Maybe I should ask if you have a PhD in hydrogen production.

Yeah, so I think exactly this is the situation. We always look to move further on the load side to produce more as efficient as we can. And when we are connected to more and more renewables down the line overnight or during the day, there will be specific needs during the 24 hours to go down in load, either because the sun is not shining, the wind is not blowing, for whatever reason. That's why it's so critical to talk about the lower load percentages and why it's important for us to keep it high. So how flexible can the system in general run? And maybe just add to the setup of the graph itself. So the different lines and the different curves were representing different versions or development stages from the very bottom of it and increasingly upwards towards newer product versions and generations. So that's what you see, the lift step by step from one system development to the next one. and where we can push it into the high end of the 90s, plus 95% in this case. So that's what you also get from this graph.

And how much of the expected SOCUS revenue do you expect to come?

On the Salkos project, we have, of course, now delivered most of it. So the first quarter, we are continuing to deliver now from Denmark during the second quarter. And there will be some revenue recognition related to that. But it's in excess of 90% already recognized now as the first quarter. Okay.

As for the Longji partnership, what is Longji getting in return from this partnership?

Longji gets a better utilization of their current plant. So this is a win-win situation for both of us. We are together filling more capacity in their plant.

So if the green hydrogen is used for DigiFuels, will HydrogenPro be the supplier of the equipment?

HydrogenPro has in connection with the loan agreement, which was presented several years ago, an exclusive agreement with Hydrogen to deliver electrolysis.

Okay, so thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your continued interest in HydrogenPro. If you have any follow-up questions that are not addressed during the Q&A session, please feel free to reach out to our team directly. And we look forward to updating you again next quarter. Have a nice day.