Hello everyone, and a warm welcome. This is Hendrik Finger from Investor Relations. Thank you for joining this conference call at such short notice. I'm sure you've already seen our latest updates, and there have been quite a few developments since yesterday afternoon. As one research report put it, nucera is currently producing more news flow within 24 hours than it usually does over a couple of months. That is not entirely wrong, which is why we have scheduled this call in between quarters to provide further details and address any questions you may have. We will host the call in the usual setup. Our CEO, Werner Ponikwar, and our CFO, Stefan Hahn, will guide you through the presentation, which has been kept very brief, given to the short lead time and to allow more time for Q&As. Now, before we start the presentation, as always, some housekeeping.
First, this call will be recorded and the replay will be made available on our website later. Second, today's presentation and potentially some answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. For additional information in this regard, please refer to the disclaimer at the end of the slide deck. With that, I'll hand over to our CEO, Werner Ponikwar, who will be starting the presentation.
Yeah. Thank you, Hendrik, and welcome everyone. Great to have you with us again. During last 24 hours, we have to admit that there had been quite some news flow, and we are certainly happy to provide more color on these events today. Now today marks a truly exciting milestone for thyssenkrupp nucera on the project pipeline side. Moeve h as selected us to deliver 300 MW of electrolysis capacity for the first phase of the Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley. This is not just another project, it is a clear signal of a renewed commercial momentum for our company and strong recognition of our competitive product offering.
This project, known as Onuba, will become the largest green hydrogen installation in Southern Europe, being able to produce around 45,000 tons of green hydrogen per year, and with that, helping to avoid roughly 20,000-50,000 tons of CO2 annually. It will enable the production of sustainable fuels for transportation and also accelerate decarbonization in the chemical and also fertilizer industry. We are proud that Moeve has selected our technology, and we are very much looking forward to be shaping such a lighthouse project for Europe's energy transition. The order has a low triple-digit million Euro value and will be booked in the second half of this fiscal year. This allows us to raise the lower end of our group order intake outlook for the current year.
Sales for this project will largely materialize in the next financial year, 2026- 2027, but the strategic significance is, of course, immediate. This is the kind of commercial traction we have worked for over the last months and quarters. It shows that the market is turning, and I firmly believe that we will see further project FIDs and further project wins for thyssenkrupp nucera in the next months and quarters. Further evidence supporting this view comes from the FEED study for a 260 MW green hydrogen project in India, which we announced yesterday. Europe remains the hottest market in the short run, but green hydrogen will be rolled out globally. Now, turning to the less pleasant news from last night. Let me walk you through the drivers behind our updated outlook for the fiscal year 2025- 2026 on slide three.
Over the past months, we have seen strong commercial momentum driven by two major project wins. The large-scale chlor-alkali project in the Middle East, booked in the second quarter, and the new 300 MW green hydrogen project, which will be booked in the second half of this fiscal year. These projects give us a more solid commercial baseline, allowing us to raise the lower end of the order intake guidance range. At the same time, several project-related factors influence our earnings. Some of our green hydrogen projects require higher implementation costs. These costs primarily relate to specific enhancement measures for already delivered electrolyzer modules, ensuring that the reliability and safety of our electrolyzers stay at the highest level. We're also seeing the financial impact of the termination of a 20 MW pilot project contract in the U.S., where the customer no longer saw sufficient return expectations.
The combination of these factors result in a low double-digit million Euro impact on our EBIT. Also, this additional cost caused technical timing effects in revenue recognition under IFRS 15. The higher cost associated with green hydrogen new-build projects reduce the accounting percentage of completion, which in turn leads to a technical negative revenue effect in the low double-digit million Euro range. This is why we expect sales for the green hydrogen segment in the second quarter to be around zero. While technically these effects still had to be reflected, of course, in our updated guidance. Taken together, this combination of positive commercial traction and higher project-related costs and timing effects explains the adjustments to our fiscal year 2025- 2026 outlook.
The fundamentals of our business remain strong, and our focus remain on disciplined execution and delivering reliably on the projects that we have secured. With that, I would hand over to Stefan for further color on the outlook.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Werner, and a warm welcome from my side as well. Based on what Werner just has explained, I will walk you through the adjustments of our full year guidance for 2025- 2026. First, we have refined our order intake outlook and significantly raised the lower end of the range. For the group, we now expect EUR 550 million-EUR 850 million, which is significantly above the EUR 348 million that have been realized in the prior fiscal year. This adjustment of the lower range especially reflects the Moeve order that has just been explained by Werner and the large chlor-alkali project in the Middle East that we've communicated late in December in the last quarter review.
In the green hydrogen segment, we have lowered our sales and EBIT expectations. We now anticipate the green hydrogen sales of EUR 120 million-EUR 170 million based on the technical effects just that were just explained. For the full-year-end EBIT expectation ranges between -EUR 125 million to -EUR 90 million. At the same time, the chlor-alkali segment continues to perform very well. Therefore, we have raised the lower end of the EBIT range to EUR 45 million, the upper range to EUR 65 million , while keeping the sales outlook for this segment unchanged. As a result, these adjustments flow through the group level. We now expect group sales of EUR 450 million-EUR 550 million and group EBIT in the range of -EUR 80 million to -EUR 30 million.
Let me give you a quick rundown of what this means for the second quarter. We expect order intake to be strong, driven in particular by the major chlor-alkali order in the Middle East, which was booked in February and will hence be fully reflected in our Q2 figures. In total, we anticipate group order intake of more than EUR 150 million in the second quarter, placing us clearly above the prior year quarter and also meaningfully ahead on a sequential basis. On the sales side, the primarily accounting-related effects tied to the higher project cost in the green hydrogen segment, which were outlined earlier, will be recognized in the second quarter. As a result, the GH2 segment is expected to report sales of around EUR 0 million due to this technical effect.
Chlor-alkali sales will be up on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The higher project-related expenses will also be booked in Q2, which means the EBIT loss at group level will increase accordingly. With that, I will hand back to Werner, who will wrap up today's presentation.
Yeah. Thanks, Stefan. Ladies and gentlemen, we are aware that the recent announcements are certainly a lot to digest. Let me briefly summarize the key messages for you. Our new 300 MW green hydrogen order from Moeve demonstrates the strong trust the industry places in our technology. Together with the 260 MW FEED study from Juno Joule in India, it underscores that the positive momentum we are seeing at the green hydrogen market continues to mature. We are building on our proven track record and remain fully engaged with our customers as they move towards the finalization and commissioning of the first electrolysis plant. At the same time, we are, of course, fully aware of the EBIT and cash impacts from the announced higher than expected project-related costs. We are actively evaluating additional cost measures to mitigate these risks and maintain operating discipline.
Importantly, our profitable cash-generating chlor-alkali business, together with our solid balance sheet, gives us the stability and headroom to navigate the current environment with confidence while staying focused on long-term value creation. With that, we conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your attention, and we will now open the line for questions.
Thanks, Werner. At this time, we will begin the question and answer session. As we are using Microsoft Teams for this call, please push the Raise Your Hand icon to indicate that you would like to ask a question. We will then announce your name, open your line, and when it is your turn, please ensure that you unmute yourself additionally. We are aware that it might take a few seconds to get everything going, also depending on the settings on your side, so no worries. The first question today comes from Marco Cristofori from Intesa. We have just opened your line, and you should be able to unmute yourself. Please go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes, Marco. We do fine.
Okay. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. A couple of question, if I may. The first one, if I see at the middle of the range, your reduction in EBIT is around EUR 40 million. If it's possible to know the split between the project canceled in the U.S. and the higher implementation cost. Specifically on higher implementation cost, do you think it was a one-off or there is risk that also on other project we can have higher implementation cost? My second question is, if this reduction can have any impact on the expected cash flow generation this year and on maybe net cash evolution? Thank you.
Sure. I'm happy to answer your questions. First question was on the mid-range EBIT - EUR 40 million and the split between the two topics mentioned here. We are not disclosing detailed figures this time. As you are well aware, of course, all the figures are still not audited and preliminary. That's the main reason. What I can say here, and I'm sure that this already or sufficiently answers your question, is that the major part of this loss is related to the cost overruns that we've seen in the projects. That is the major part. Directly related to that is your third question regarding the cash effects.
As you are well aware, also in the past quarters, we are very focused on our free cash flow and, of course, it's always our aim to have a more or less balanced free cash flow. Also here, the cash effect from the cost that we see now will realize over the next three quarters. It will not be a one-time cash effect hitting into Q2. Rather the impact on Q2 is pretty much close to zero, and we will see first impacts over the next two to three quarters. That doesn't necessarily mean that free cash flow in these quarters has to be significantly negative, so this will be a bit more stretched over a longer period.
Surely, sooner or later, that will realize. Then your second question was, is it a one-off? Of course, the cost that we've booked right now is our expectation that we have in the projects. It also shows one other thing, and this is that projects are now close to being close to commissioning, and they have a very high percentage of completion degree. That is also the reason why a big part of these losses are now directly hitting into our P&L. If you were at a much earlier state in our projects, they wouldn't directly into our P&L. That is just a common practice in POC accounting. Currently this reflects our expectation.
As you know, the projects that we are working on are reference projects, and now it is important, and this is what really matters, that the plants are commissioned and running. Then the projects will be finalized, and hence we cannot fully exclude that additional costs might realize till finalization of these really first of its kind reference projects, which is also not untypical for these kind of projects we are working on.
Thank you.
Thanks, Marco. The next question comes from Kévin Roger with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we do. Hi, Kevin.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. If maybe we can start from what you mean in terms of specific enhancements, because it's very vague for us to understand what it means exactly, because you have delivered a number of modules, everything, one on site. What does it mean exactly? You need to change the product, you need to change some elements, you need additional equipment on site? Just to understand exactly what you mean by a specific enhancement measure on those project and notably the one in the Middle East, NEOM. As a kind of second derivative, what does it mean exactly for the performance of your 20 MW electrolyzer?
Because on one side you have those additional costs on the big project, you have the termination of the contract with CF Industries that basically are telling us that the performance is not good enough. Implicitly, as a second derivative, based on what you need to do and what you mean by specific enhancements, what does it mean for the performance of your 20 MW electrolyzer module, please? And the second one is maybe on how you protect yourself in the contracts, things like that. How is it possible that basically CF Industries in moving away from a contract like that and that you have to pay the bill at the end on something that you were working on with a contract?
How do you protect yourself in the future in the terms and condition of the contract that, I don't know, sorry for that, but I'm gonna make a stupid example, but, and maybe a very impossible one, but that on this 300 MW contract that you announced this morning, the client will not, in a six or 12 months time move away and we're gonna see exactly the same thing again? Thanks.
Okay. Thank you for the questions. This is Werner. Let me elaborate a little bit on the specific enhancements that we're planning. I cannot go into all the technical details here. Clearly, to start with, actually, let's not forget that technological improvements are always part of a maturing of a technology in an industry. As such, it's not very uncommon that you identify over a period of time, you know, over the last months and quarters, improvement potentials, and you always need to think, okay, and we do that together with our clients, with our customers, how to deal with that. Do we want to do that right now?
Is this something that we would attempt to do later? Let's not forget that our systems are made for operation for 20-30 years. It's rather now if you want sort of a pre-invest into the future of our systems than anything else to ensure that, you know, these systems will be working safely and reliable over the course of the next 20-30 years. This is why we have decided also together with our customers to invest now in these additional enhancements if you want that in general are targeted on three different things.
One is certainly we see that there are potential regulations upcoming actually that we sooner or later the whole industry will have to comply with. That's certainly something that we want to proactively now improve in our systems. Certainly in addition to that, we also learned over the last year that there's still room for improvement when it comes to safety. There always is. I'm not saying that our systems were unsafe, but you can certainly always enhance and improve in terms of safety of the overall system, making sure that actually you know you can minimize the risk to the lowest maximum extent here as well.
That's certainly something that we have decided to do as well together with our client. Certainly, actually, that certainly also has an impact on reliability and also that is something that we are typically trying to keep at the highest possible level. With that, certainly also a part of these specific enhancements are targeted in these directions. Now that's sort of how we, you know, the different specific measures that we wanna take. There's a number of, and they are not only equipment and hardware, but it's also on the software side.
There's a big update, if you want, that we are doing actually on both ends here. It certainly, coming back to your concern about performance, has nothing to do with the performance of our systems. Our systems are working. They're working properly, and we've also demonstrated already that they're working according to the expectations that we have and that our clients do have. That was basically the same also in the U.S. with CF. As CF has announced, they don't see economic justification anymore to continue actually with the plant.
That has certainly a lot to do with also, I would say, the market in the U.S. actually and how they look at green hydrogen and sustainable energy right now, that was driving this decision on their side. Now, this has an impact on us contractually. Yes, it's something that is certainly not in our favor.
You can be rest assured that with every contract that is in place right now, after CF, and don't forget that CF was the first one that we ever have established in the field of green hydrogen, that with every contract that was agreed after that, the clauses are different.
Okay, thanks. Sorry, just to follow up, just to be sure I understand. When you say that those specific enhancement, stuff have been done together with the clients, does it mean that the costs are shared and that the client is also paying or it's in a way an open discussion that you had, and at the end it's only you that are paying for the additional improvements that you placed on the electrolyzer?
There's certainly an expectation that this is not only on our shoulders. This is certainly something where we also see that our clients take a share in these additional costs, because it's of course in our joint interest here as well.
Okay. Okay, thanks.
Thanks, Kevin. The next question comes from Martin Wilkie with Citi. Please unmute yourself and go ahead. While you're doing that, maybe a reminder, if you want to ask a question, please use the Raise Your Hand button, and then we will announce your name. Sorry, Martin. Please go ahead.
No, good. Thank you. Can you hear me now?
We do, yes.
Great. Thank you. Just a question on the timing. I think some of the deliveries for the project where you had the overruns were gonna be in 2027. Just to clarify, when you talk that obviously you can't rule out that there could be some more cost adjustments later, is it possible that could impact 2027? Or is it more that you see the impact of this if there were to be future impacts, it would still be within the current fiscal 2026 year? That was my first question.
Yeah. Hi, Martin. It's Stefan speaking. As it is common practice in POC accounting, the costs that we are realizing right now are our expectations for expenditures that we realize in the future. That is common practice in POC, and that also explains why the cash out will be stretched over two-three quarters. What has been described by Werner will be implemented probably within the next three-nine months. There is a corresponding cash out behind it, but the EBIT effect that is realized right now, as is common practice in POC accounting. The reason for that is that we have a very mature project pipeline with a very high POC percentage.
In these cases, these kinds of expectations are realizing directly in PnL. That is not unusual. To put in short, from what we see right now, there will be no further effects in the next fiscal year.
Great. No, that's really helpful. Thank you. The second question I had was, and maybe this is not the right forum for it, given we'll have an earnings call coming up, in the near future. Obviously with the changes to the sort of macro backdrop, with higher energy costs and so forth, and we're gonna have an E.U. summit in the next couple of days where we expect, you know, the E.U. To sort of double down on green energy and energy efficiency and all these kind of things. What's the sort of mood of your customers now in terms of delivering or accelerating your pipeline? Obviously you do give us quite a lot of detail on your pipeline. Yeah.
Has there been any sort of sense of acceleration of conversion, or is it just simply too early to tell as to what the impact from the current conflict could be?
Yeah. This is Werner. I mean, we certainly, I would say, see some tailwinds already, but it's too early to tell whether that is sustainable really. I mean, you know, it's a bit like, we've seen also in other occasions where, you know, where there was flooding and everyone was discussing, "Oh, climate change, and now we need to do something urgently," and so on and so forth. This typically holds for a couple of months, and then things are changing again and different topics are of more interest. You know, so I would be a bit cautious. It's certainly now initiating again a discussion of, you know, sovereignty, resilience, you know, energy independency, in particular of course in Europe, as you can imagine.
Certainly I would say supports projects that are close to FID. Let's put it that way. That's also why I was mentioning we are confident that there's still more to come. How much that is really sustainable and will be dominating, I would say, discussions and political decisions going forward remains to be seen.
Great. Thank you very much.
Sure.
Thanks, Martin. There seems to be no more questions at this point in time. For that reason, I hand over to Werner one last time, and you will conclude today's.
Yeah. Thank you very much for joining this call of course. Again, I think there's a lot to digest, and I hope that we could shed some more light on the events now with this call. In any case, if you have further questions, then please do not hesitate to contact here our Investor Relations team, which is certainly you know available anyway. With that, yeah, thank you for joining, and let's stay in touch, looking forward for our next event as well. Thank you very much.