With no energy reserves of its own, the rapidly developing nation has to rely on foreign suppliers to cover its needs for crude and liquefied natural gas.
Speaking after talks in Moscow over a Russian project to supply LNG from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Ban ki-Moon said: "Starting in 2008, we will be able to receive 1.5 million metric tons of [liquefied natural] gas from Sakhalin over a period of 20 years. We have great hopes for consolidation and growth of gas supplies from Russia."
The Southeast Asian country currently relies on Qatar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Oman for its LNG.
Ban said South Korea had recognized Russia as a market economy when it hosted last year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Busan, thereby removing all trade barriers in the way of Russian imports.
"Should institutional problems arise, we can solve them through a joint committee on economic cooperation," he said, adding that trade between the two countries presently totaled $7.8 billion.
Speaking of other joint projects, Ban said the two countries were working to link the Trans-Korean and the Trans-Siberian railroads, as well as to send South Korea's first astronaut to the International Space Station.
Ban is currently in the Kazakh city of Almaty for a summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a 16-member regional security organization where South Korea is an observer.
He said Seoul expected the CICA to help it extend its diplomatic outreach to stop communist North Korea from developing a nuclear weapons program.
"We have been working in this organization as an observer since 1993, and we understand its objectives and goals: cooperation, opinion exchanges, broader mutual understanding between member states, tolerance and trust," the minister said. "They fully correspond to our principles for solving the North Korean problem."
He said Russia and China had key roles to play in resolving the international standoff over North Korea's ambitions. Both nations are involved in six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program, along with South Korea, the United States and Japan.
Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries that have good relations with Pyongyang could also contribute to the resolution of the crisis by "opening doors" to North Korea's integration into the international community, Ban said.
