July 2025 marked the first month since the inception of the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) Bulk Oil Distribution Company (BDC) foreign exchange auction programme in March 2022 that no auction was conducted. The absence of the monthly intervention breaks a run of over three years in which the BoG consistently supplied US dollars to BDCs to support the importation of petroleum products.

The BDC FX auction scheme was introduced on March 30, 2022, to ensure regular access to foreign exchange for licensed bulk distributors and to help stabilise domestic fuel prices. The central bank typically offered US$20 million per auction, with allocations made via competitive bidding to qualified BDCs.

No official reason has yet been given for the suspension in July, though it comes at a time when the cedi has been relatively stable and domestic fuel prices have eased on the back of lower global crude prices. The pause also coincided with a renewed focus by the BoG on tightening liquidity in the short-term money market through higher-yielding BoG bills.

Market participants will be watching closely to see whether the absence of a BDC auction becomes a one-off event or signals a shift in the central bank’s FX intervention strategy. The next opportunity for such an auction would normally fall in August, but as of now no schedule has been published.