nel asa said thursday that its secondquarter net loss narrowed as revenue and orders both rose but cautioned that margins are expected to remain under pressure the norwegian hydrogen company said it sees a rapidly increasing pipeline of opportunities globally with multiple gigawatts of electrolyser projects expected to reach a final investment decision before 2025 however it continues to be negatively impacted by the lingering effects and intermittent flareups related to the covidpandemic the war in ukraine and increased raw material and logistics costs as a result margins are expected to continue experiencing pressure in the medium term it said over time increasing revenues are expected to support cost reduction and scale effects leading to profitability it added nel reported a secondquarter net loss of 2745 million norwegian kroner 288 million compared with a net loss of nok3123 million a year earlier while total revenue and operating income rose 12 to nok1832 million earnings loss before interest tax depreciation and amortization widened to nok197 million from a loss of nok120 million amid higher personnel costs increased raw materials expenses and delayed deliveries due to supplychain challenges at the end of the quarter the company said it had an order backlog of nok144 billion up from nok108 billion a year earlier while total order intake stood at nok236 million up from nok147 million separately the company said thursday that it has decided to build a new fully automated alkaline production line at heroya in norway doubling capacity at the factory to around 1 gigawatt the new production line is expected to be in operation from april 2024 and total capital expenditure commitment for the equipment will be around eur35 million in addition nel said it has received a eur8 million purchase order from an undisclosed european client for the delivery of several hydrogen fueling units for light and heavyduty fuel cell electric vehicles