UPDATE 4-UTS stock soars as market bets on higher Total bid

(Adds analyst comment, updates stock prices)

By Jeffrey Jones and Tom Bergin

CALGARY/LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Shares in Canadian oil sands developer UTS Energy Corp (UTS.TO) more than doubled on Wednesday as investors wagered that a C$617 million ($510 million) takeover bid from French oil major Total SA (TOTF.PA) will be beaten or sweetened.

Total's unsolicited C$1.30 a share cash bid, launched late on Tuesday, represents the first takeover attempt in Canada's oil sands since the high-cost sector's fortunes went from boom to bust in just five months.

Shares in UTS, whose main asset is a 20 percent stake in the delayed Fort Hills project in northern Alberta, surged 90 Canadian cents to C$1.73 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"Total is likely going to have to raise their bid -- the market's telling them that, anyway," Genuity Capital Markets analyst Philip Skolnick said.

Analysts said the bid places some value on UTS's working capital but essentially none on its oil sands in the ground.

Total, trying to bolster its already large oil sands position at a bargain price, was forced to up its bid by about 14 percent when it bought another oil sands player, Synenco Energy Inc, for C$531 million last summer.

It also raised its offer for Deer Creek Energy by 24 percent to C$1.6 billion in 2005.