The number of oil and natural gas permits issued to companies seeking to drill in Utah climbed to record levels in this year's third quarter, according to the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

The division issued 519 permits in the three months ended Sept. 30, up 6 percent from 489 permits issued during the same quarter in 2005.

Permits issued from January through September in 2006 reached 1,619, just shy of the 1,630 permits issued in all of 2005, a record year.

Roughly two-thirds of all permits issued so far this year were in Uintah County, where oil and natural gas discoveries are driving job growth, creating a situation in which there are more jobs than people to fill them.

According to a report released earlier this year by the Utah Department of Workforce Services, 5.2 jobs went unfilled out of every 100 jobs in the Uinta Basin, the highest job vacancy rate of any region in the state. The report also noted that the Uinta Basin had roughly 900 job openings at any given time in the fourth quarter of 2005. The average wage for those jobs was $12.20 an hour.

Bill Johnson, executive director for economic development in Uintah County and Vernal City, said the oil and natural gas boom likely will continue for several more years, which has intensified the worker shortage.

"You've got a lot of homebuilders and real estate developers that are looking for plumbers, electricians and subcontractors," Johnson said. "They can't find anybody. So they're forced to import people out of the Wasatch Front. Then they have got the issue of once they get them here, where do they put them up?"

The majority of drilling activity in Uintah County, Johnson said, is for natural gas.

About 55 percent of all new permits granted result in an actual drilling operation, according to the division. Companies have one year to begin drilling after securing a permit, but they can be granted an additional year extension.

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