The deadline to receive the last RBF claims from stove distributors has been extended from 31 October 2018 to 30 November 2018. Please ensure all RBF claims are submitted to C-Quest Capital by this date. Any RBF claims received after this date will not be processed and go unpaid.

The Stove Auction project is scheduled to end on 31 December 2018.  The timeline to meet the end of year project closure deadline is the following:

• Last Auction: 27 September 2018
• Last Seller & Buyer Claims Received (from CQC to SNV): 31 October 2018
• Last IVA Verification Completed: 30 November 2018
• Last Seller and Buy Claim Transfers: 07 December 2018

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Per The Stove Auction’s original guidelines as published on the Guidelines for Buyers webpage, every year of operation The Stove Auction reduces the amount of RBF cash incentive that can be claimed per auction stove that is sold to an end-consumer and successfully verified. The Stove Auction is about to complete the second year of operations and according to the original plan, RBF Cash Incentives for Year 3 stoves would be reduced to Premium Level: EUR 11.52 and Standard Level: 7.68. It has been decided by The Stove Auction Market Regulation Committee, that consists of EnDev, SNV, and CQC Cambodia, that the RBF Incentive Level to Buyers will be adapted from the original planning to the below scheme in order to incentivize more sustainable retail pricing by distributors. In summary, distributors that retail their stoves at 100% plus of the Guarantee Price can receive higher RBF Cash Incentives as compared to the original plan. Distributors that retail their stoves at less than 80% of the Guarantee price receive lower RBF Cash Incentives as compared to the original plan. The existing rule that stoves sold at retail prices below the auction purchase prices receive zero incentive still applies.​

​Retail Sales Price Monitoring
The retail sales price information in the Sales Reports submitted by the distributors to The Stove Auction as part of the RBF Claim Process will be the primary way of determining the level of RBF under this revised scheme. This sales information will be cross-checked against the pricing information that is verified on a sample basis by the IVA. The Auction manager will download the verification data results and review the pricing information, which will either show that the customer confirms they purchased the stove for the retail price as listed in the Sales Report, or if not, the price they claim they have paid for the stove. If there are differences in retail prices reported by distributors and end-customers, the retail prices reported by end-customers will be used, and the level of RBF will be adjusted accordingly based on a percentage basis of the results from the sampled households that underwent verification. 

Auction KH0035 has been postponed from 28 September 2017 to 16 October 2017.

Per our guidelines, every year of operation we reduce the amount of RBF cash incentive that can be claimed per auction stove that is sold to an end-consumer and successfully verified. We have just completed our first year of operations and now it is time to reduce the cash incentive to the Year 2 level, which has been posted in the online Guidelines for Buyers webpage since the start of the program.
 
Please be informed that all stoves purchased from next auction (KH0024, April 12) onwards until the Year 3 levels come into effect, will receive the following cash incentives:
 
Year 2 RBF Cash Incentive Level to Buyers
Premium Level: EUR 14.40
Standard Level: EUR 9.60

Please be informed of revisions made to the Buyer Agreement which are effective as of 09 February 2017.  Many of revisions were made to provide more clarity to existing processes and policies. The revised Buyer Agreement can be downloaded on the BUYING webpage.
 
To summarize, the revisions providing further clarification include:

1. The cash incentive cannot be claimed for stoves that are:
   • Sold to an end-consumer either directly by the Buyer or indirectly through resellers or other middle-men at a price that is less than what the stove was purchased for at auction;
   • Given away for free either directly by the Buyer or indirectly through resellers or other middle-men to an end-consumer, or combined with other subsidies directed to the end-consumer. This includes but not limited to the Buyer selling stoves to institutional buyers such as to Government agencies, political parties, NGOs, or any other entity that gives the stove away for free to end-consumers or combines them with other end-consumer subsidies. 
2. The Serial Number reported in the Sales Report should match the format of the Serial Number written on the Goods Receipt
3. Your cash incentive claim will be independently verified and payment determined on a per stove model basis. Meaning that when you submit a Sales Report as part of your claim that may include more than one stove model, a sample of customers will be pulled for telephone inspections and physical inspections on a per stove model basis. Thus it is possible for you to fail verification on one stove model and pass verification on another stove model and still receive cash incentive payment for the passing stove model.
4. If a Buyer’s Claim fails and the Buyer has a disputes about the explanation provided by the Independent Verification Agent and/or CQC about why the failure occurred, SNV Cambodia will investigate and has the final say when determining a pass or failed verification.
5. The Stove Auction will accept MS Excel format of Sales Reports rather than CSV files.

 
Revisions that represent new information include:

1. After each auction, Buyer’s pay their winning bid amounts directly to CQC Cambodia versus paying the Seller directly. This has become the practice after CQC Cambodia has taken over management from SNV. And Buyers are now responsible for covering any bank wire fees when they transfer funds to CQC Cambodia.
2. We ask that Buyers include in the Sales Report that they submit as part of their RBF Claim, a new column titled “Area Type”. We ask that the Buyer in their best judgement classify the geographic location of the customer’s household as either Rural or Urban. For guidance, the Buyer may consider all provincial towns, all of Phnom Penh municipality, and the entire provinces of Sihanoukville, Kep and Pailin as Urban. A revised Sales Report template can be downloaded here.
3. For Customer Registration Cards that are scanned or photographed or otherwise digitized and submitted to CQC Cambodia as part of your RBF Claim, we request for the purpose of making the claim checking more expedient, to have a separate file for each Registration Card and have the file name be labeled the same as the Serial Number. Some Buyers have started to do this already and we would like to formalize this best practice.

​This notice is to inform Registered Bidders of a policy change for the Reserve Price of stoves sold at auction. The Reserve Price is the minimum eligible bid price for a stove sold at auction. Currently the Reserve Price is hidden, meaning it is not publically known. The new Reserve Price Policy implements a published reserve price for each stove that slightly increases per auction. Below are the main points of the new Reserve Price Policy:

• Reserve Prices are published on The Stove Auction website for two auctions at a time: http://www.thestoveauction.org/cambodia.html
• Reserve Prices increase per auction per stove
• Indicative rate of increase per auction is 3%
• Reserve Prices shall never be lower than the RBF cash incentive for Buyers
• Reserve Prices peak at 80% of the Full Wholesale Value of each stove
• Each stove will have a starting Reserve Price point:
  • Prime Fuelwood Square: $15.50
  • ACE 1: $45.00
  • Mimi Moto: $33.50
  • 3G Small: $13.20 

Dear Registered Bidders, we would like to kindly inform that the window of time for all upcoming auctions (starting with Auction # KH0014 on Nov 17) will change from 9:00-17:00 to 10:00-16:00. Please kindly also note that the SMS updates will be sent at 11:00, 13:00 and 14:00. The final notice will be sent at 15:30 and the final result will be sent at 16:00. We do believe these changes will not create any impact to the overall auction activities and we look forward to receiving your active participation. The Stove Auction Team (C-Quest Capital).

The shipment of Mimi Moto Cookstoves is currently being cleared out of Cambodian customs and won't be ready to be auctioned on 31 August (KH0010). They will be included in the next auction on 15 September (KH0011).

The Stove Auction has reduced the quantity levels of Lot 1 (ACE 1 Solar Biomass Cookstove) from 170 to 50 units and Lot 2 (Prime Fuelwood Square) from 200 to 50 units in Auction #KH0005.

The Full Wholesale Value for the ACE 1 Solar Biomass Cookstove has increased from EUR 99.00 to EUR 108.00 due to increased costs in production and import duty compared to previous units that were produced and shipped to Cambodia in early 2015.