Kansai Electric Power Co., the utility most reliant on atomic power, aims to increase investments in uranium mines as competition for the resource intensifies, its president said in a recent interview.

The nation's second-biggest power utility wants to source about 50 percent of its total uranium needs from mines it holds stakes in, from about 20 percent to 30 percent now, President Shosuke Mori, 68, said Friday. He didn't give details of the proposed investments or say whether the company will increase its share of existing ventures or seek new projects.

Utilities here are stepping up efforts to secure supplies of uranium as China and India boost atomic power capacity and the U.S. eases restrictions on new reactors to help reduce carbon emissions. Demand for the ore may increase to 74,000 tons a year in 2015, up from about 65,000 tons now, according to the World Nuclear Association.

"With the nuclear drive worldwide, demand is expected to spike," said Tomohiro Jikihara, an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc. "Securing the resource is a step toward increasing nuclear generation."

Kansai Electric plans to increase the operating rate at its 11 reactors to 82 percent in the year starting in April 2011 from 72 percent in the year that ended March 31, spokesman Takeshi Soga said.

The utility was the first in Japan to invest in a mine in Kazakhstan, holder of the world's second-biggest reserves.

Kansai Electric together with partners Sumitomo Corp. and Kazatomprom, a state-owned miner, said in 2006 they would invest $100 million in the West Mynkuduk mine.