(News Bulletin 247) – The Isère group announced at the start of the week a first sale outside Europe of a hydrogen refueling station to a project developer in Saudi Arabia. The market welcomes the international expansion of HRS.

Hydrogen refueling solutions (HRS) reaches an important milestone in its history. For its 20 years of existence, the Grenoble-based group made its first sale outside the European continent, with an order in Saudi Arabia.

It concerns the supply of an HRS14 hydrogen station to a project developer in Saudi Arabia. This station has a capacity of 200 kg/day or up to 14 kg/hour.

Neither the amount of the order nor the identity of the buyer have been communicated by HRS. The French group simply indicates that the buyer is a “national energy company” and “a major player in the region”. The latter intends, with this station, to refuel a planned fleet of 20 buses and light vehicles from July 2024.

TP ICAP Midcap provides a little more detail. The design office estimates the price of this order at just over 1.5 million euros.

An “area with high potential”

The companies intend to communicate more fully after installation of the station in the second half of 2024, specifies HRS.

“This first station sold outside Europe marks a decisive step in HRS’s strategy in its international development in areas with high potential, particularly in the Middle East with numerous commercial opportunities identified in the region. HRS intends play a major role in this booming market and respond, thanks to its technological and industrial mastery, to the growing needs of players in the region,” explains HRS.

“HRS has seconded 2 people (1 director and 1 technician) to the customer’s site to train them on the maintenance of the stations, which makes us believe that other orders will follow and that this is a commitment on the long term”, continues Veneta Nikolova, analyst at TP ICAP Midcap.

With this international order, the group is strengthening its fleet of hydrogen stations. HRS boasts to date an installed base of high capacity stations, presented as “the largest on the market, with 18 stations of 200 kg/day, or a cumulative capacity of nearly 4 tonnes/day.

Above all, this sale validates the ambitions of the HRS group outside Europe, in areas “identified with high potential”. Alongside the publication of its first half accounts at the end of April, the company indicated that it was holding “discussions in the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, with projects already identified, led by local players”.

Technological advantages

TP ICAP Midcap recalls in this respect that the HRS group “has technological mastery (resistance of stations to hot climates) to meet the growing needs of this region”.

At the end of June, HRS hopes to achieve an annual turnover of between 31 million euros and 40 million euros, before increasing its sales to “at least 85 million euros” by 2026.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, the markets are moving backwards following the announcement of this historic sale for HRS. The stock, which had lost 2.5% on Wednesday with the decline in the markets, soared this Thursday by 14.4% to 6.76 euros around 12:30 p.m.

The share, however, remains below its February 2021 introductory price, which was set at 25.30 euros.