Archives for 2024

NEW DELHI: India signed a multi-billion dollar deal to extend LNG imports from Qatar till 2048 at rates that are lower than current prices on Tuesday, sources said.

The country will supply 7.5 MMTPA (million metric tons per annum) of LNG to India for the next twenty years.

The deal is an extension of an existing agreement supplying around 7.5 MMTPA of LNG from Qatar to India until 2028.

Petronet, in a press note, said LNG supplies will be made on a delivered (DES) basis from 2028 to 2048. Similar to the earlier 1999 agreement, GAIL (India) Limited (60%), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (30%), and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (10%) will off-take the LNG volumes after regasification, primarily from Dahej Terminal of PLL, on a substantially back-to-back basis.

“The existing long-term agreement between Petronet LNG and Qatar Energy currently accounts for around 35% of India’s LNG imports and is of national importance. The renewal of this agreement is a step towards achieving the vision of the Honorable Prime Minister of India to make India a gas-based economy and increase the share of natural gas in India’s primary energy basket to 15% by 2030,” said Akshay Kumar Singh, MD and CEO of Petronet LNG Limited.

Meanwhile, GAIL said it will off-take about 4.5 MMTPA of LNG from Petronet.

“According to the government, the agreement will provide energy security, ensure a stable and reliable supply of clean energy, and help India in its stride towards greater economic development,” Singh added.

He further added that the long-term LNG purchase agreement with Qatar Energy will strengthen the existing relationship between the two companies.

The deal will ensure the energy security of India and assure continued supplies of regasified LNG to major consuming sectors like fertilizers, CGD, refineries, petrochemicals, power, and other industries. India aims to increase the share of natural gas in the country’s energy basket from 6% to 15% by 2030.

NEW YORK: Even as Catholic dogma continues to repudiate same-sex marriage and gender transition, one of the most prominent religious orders in the United States — the Jesuits — is strengthening a unique outreach program for LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The initiative — fittingly called Outreach — was founded two years ago by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who is one of the country’s most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church.

Outreach, a ministry of the Jesuit magazine America, sponsored conferences in New York City in 2022 and 2023, and last year launched a multifaceted website with news, essays and information about Catholic LGBTQ+ resources and events.

On Tuesday, there was another milestone for Outreach — the appointment of journalist and author Michael O’Loughlin as its first executive director.

O’Loughlin, a former staff writer at online newspaper Crux, has been the national correspondent at America. He is the author of a book recounting the varied ways that Catholics in the US responded to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s — “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.”

O’Loughlin told The Associated Press he’s excited by his new job, viewing it as a chance to expand the range of Outreach’s programs and the national scope of its community.

“It’s an opportunity to highlight the ways LGBT people can be Catholic and active in parishes, ministries and charities,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear about to being too public about it. … I want them to realize they’re not alone.”

O’Loughlin says his current outlook evolved as he traveled to scores of places around the US to promote his book, talking to groups of LGBTQ+ Catholics, and their families and friends, about how to make the church more welcoming to them.

Those conversations made O’Loughlin increasingly comfortable publicly identifying as a gay Catholic after years of wondering whether he should remain in the church. Its doctrine still condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.”

The latest expansion of Outreach occurs amid a time of division within the global Catholic Church as it grapples with LGBTQ+ issues.

Pope Francis, a Jesuit who has met with Martin and sent letters of support to Outreach, has made clear he favors a more welcoming approach to LGBTQ+ people. At his direction, the Vatican recently gave priests greater leeway to bless same-sex couples and asserted that transgender people, in some circumstances, can be baptized.

However, there has been some resistance to the pope’s approach. Many conservative bishops in Africa, Europe and elsewhere said they would not implement the new policy regarding blessings. In the U.S., some bishops have issued directives effectively ordering diocesan personnel not to recognize transgender people’s gender identity.

Amid those conflicting developments, Martin and other Jesuit leaders are proud of Outreach’s accomplishments and optimistic about its future.

“Pope Francis has been very encouraging, allowing himself to be interviewed by Outreach and sending personal greetings to our conference last year,” Martin added. “Perhaps the most surprising support has been from several bishops who have written for our website, as well as some top-notch Catholic theologians who see the need for serious theological reflection on LGBTQ topics.”

Martin will remain engaged in Outreach’s oversight, holding the title of founder.

The Rev. Brian Paulson, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, evoked both Jesus and the pope when asked why his order had embraced the mission of Outreach.

“Pope Francis has repeatedly called leaders in the Catholic church to emulate the way Jesus spent his ministry on the peripheries, accompanying those who had experienced exclusion,” Paulson said email. “I think the work of Outreach is a response to this invitation.”

Paulson also said he was impressed by Martin’s “grace and patience” in responding to the often harsh criticism directed at him by some conservative Catholics.

There was ample evidence of Outreach’s stature at its conference last June at a branch of Fordham University in New York City. The event was preceded by a handwritten letter of support sent to Martin by Pope Francis, extending “prayers and good wishes” to the participants.

“It’s a special grace for LGBTQ Catholics to know that the pope is praying for them,” Martin said.

Another welcoming letter came from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

“It is the sacred duty of the Church and Her ministers to reach out to those on the periphery,” he wrote to the conference attendees.

The keynote speakers included Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow, and the closing Mass was celebrated by Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.