"What makes GTO particularly appealing is its potential to use natural gas from remote fields that doesn't have easy access to world markets - gas that otherwise would be difficult to sell."
A gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) is a special type of thyristor, which is a high-power (e.g. 1200 V AC) semiconductor device. It was invented by General Electric. GTOs, as opposed to normal thyristors, are fully controllable switches which can be turned on and off by their gate lead.