KIEV, Oct. 27 - Ukraine will hold a tender to select a new investor for a major shale gas extraction project after Royal Dutch Shell has exited, Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said Tuesday.

Shell, which signed a production sharing agreement with the Ukrainian government in January 2013, pulled the plug on $10 billion project shortly after an armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists had erupted in June 2014.

“Shell withdrew from this project. There was a long procedure of exiting the project due to the force majeure,” Demchyshyn said.