SALT LAKE CITY -- Motivated by soaring prices for nuclear fuel, a Canadian company has received permission to look for uranium deposits in Utah.

"We've been lining this project up for months now," said Leonard MacMillan of Vancouver-based Max Resource Corp. "And if everything goes as planned -- if the rig is available and the weather holds -- we hope to begin drilling the first of six holes by the end of the month."

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining approved the drilling for a 3,900-acre parcel of land in central Utah. Max Resources hopes to discover enough uranium to interest a larger company with more resources.

MacMillan said his company obtained 196 mining claims from Phillips Uranium, which abandoned exploration after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident raised questions about the future of nuclear power.

Analysts are projecting a shortage of uranium to fuel the nation's power plants. Uranium prices have risen to more than $36 a pound from less than $10 a decade ago, and the price is expected to keep climbing.

Five other companies are working to obtain permits to drill on state lands for uranium, said Jim Springer, spokesman for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

A similar rush is on for federal lands.

"We've seen a half dozen projects out of this office alone," said Frank Bain, a Bureau of Land Management geologist in Moab with oversight of federal lands in Grand and San Juan counties of southeastern Utah. "There hasn't been activity like that since at least the early 1980s."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D2.