CALGARY, Alberta (AP) - The board of Canada's UTS Energy Corp. has unanimously urged shareholders to reject French oil giant Total SA's unsolicited $617 million Canadian dollars (US$505 million) offer to acquire the oil sands operator.

Chairman of the Board Dennis Sharp said Feb. 9 the bid is inadequate and opportunistic and fails to recognize the full value of the company.

"We can do better for our shareholders than what this offer represents," Sharp said in a statement.

UTS said the timing of the Total offer is opportunistic given the recent dramatic decline in the price of oil and in the price of UTS shares. It said major institutional shareholders have termed the Total offer as inadequate.

The Calgary, Alberta-based company has created a special board committee to pursue various initiatives to maximize shareholder value. It said the sum of UTS's cash and investment in all its projects earn-in is CA$3.57 (US$2.92) per share.

Paris-based Total offered CA$1.30 (US$1.07) per share. The offer is conditional on Total receiving at least 66.67 percent of UTS Energy's shares.

In early trading Feb. 9, UTS shares rose two cents to CA$1.72 (US$1.41) on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

UTS Energy owns a 20 percent stake in Alberta's Fort Hills Project, an oil sands field with an estimated 4 billion barrels of bitumen.

Alberta is home to vast reserves of oil sands, a tar-like bitumen that is extracted using mining techniques. Industry officials estimate the region could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil, which would make Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves.

However, the massive oil sands projects have been criticized as a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Forest Hills Project is led by Petro-Canada with a 60 percent stake. The remaining 20 percent is owned by Canadian mining company Teck Cominco Ltd.

A final decision on developing the multibillion Forest Hills Project is expected to be made by 2010, with production starting as early as 2013, Total said.

The project would strengthen Total's oil sands portfolio in northern Alberta, where it already owns majority stakes in two other developments - the Joslyn Project and the Northern Lights Project.

Besides Forest Hills, UTS Energy also holds a 50 percent working interest in an additional 122,667 hectares (306,667 acres) of oil sands prospective leases located primarily on the west side of the Athabasca River, UTS Energy said.

Rio Tinto's chairman-elect quits suddenly

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Rio Tinto's chairman-elect Jim Leng has quit less than a month after being named to the board of the debt-laden mining giant.

Leng, the deputy chairman of India's Tata Steel, was to have become chairman in April but now Paul Skinner, the current chairman, will stay on until the middle of the year, Rio Tinto said in a statement released Feb. 9.

Rio Tinto is aiming to pay back about $10 billion of its $38 billion debt mountain by the end of 2009 through axing some 14,000 jobs worldwide, selling assets and cutting capital spending.

That debt, along with plummeting prices for iron ore and other commodities, was cited by BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, as the reason for dropping its takeover offer for Rio Tinto late last year.

The miner's statement did not provide an explanation for Leng's sudden departure and a spokeswoman declined to comment further on the announcement.

The Financial Times said on its Web site that Leng quit after a disagreement with Chief Executive Tom Albanese over how to tackle the company's financial problems, but the report did not cite sources.

Lawsuit demands California update mining rules

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Advocates in the campaign to boost salmon returns to the Klamath River have sued to force the California Department of Fish and Game to update rules allowing hobby gold mining in salmon streams.

The lawsuit filed earlier this month in Superior Court in Alameda, Calif., is the latest chapter in efforts by salmon fishermen and Indian tribes to reverse declines that practically shut down West Coast salmon fishing last year.

The lawsuit argues the department is aware that a method called suction dredge mining can destroy salmon eggs as it sucks stream gravel through a process to sort out gold. It argues a lack of money is no excuse for failing to obey a court order to re-evaluate the rules.

The department had no immediate comment.