KIEV, Dec. 18 - Ukraine will continue its shale gas extraction projects, which will not be affected lower Russian natural gas prices, Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavytskiy said Wednesday.

Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Eni, EDF and a consortium led by ExxonMobil have been seeking to invest in gas extraction, but analysts raised questions of whether those projects will be printable enough to compete with cheap Russian gas.