BRUSSELS, March 4 - The first well for shale gas extraction as part of the contract with Shell will be drilled when the environmental audit shows that environmental risks are practically equal to zero, Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Oleh Proskuriakov said.

"All environmental problems will be indicated in the draft project, everything will be detailed. The project will undergo an environmental audit, a state one, a public one, and an independent one, as required. This audit will be conducted so that we can compare all factors and make sure that the environmental risks are minimized and practically equal to zero, and only then we will start drilling the first well," he said in an interview with Ukrainian journalists in Brussels.