“We've had an unprecedented run up in prices for so late in the year,” said Marie Montgomery, an Auto Club representative. “That is not a great starting point for 2008.”

Although Montgomery and other local gas-price watchers aren't ready to predict $4-per-gallon gas next year, May's record of $3.50 is certainly in jeopardy.

Experts are hesitant to predict exactly how high prices will go in part because of uncertainty about the price of a barrel of oil, the main driver of pump prices.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery fell 62 cents yesterday to settle at $96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But even with the drop, oil prices have risen 5 percent in a little more than a week, and about 50 percent this year.

Many experts, however, say the run has been driven by speculators, and is due for a significant drop.

“Two years ago we predicted gas prices on the nose,” said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network. “This year we're not because of the whole oil price situation.”

Shames said other factors, such as a slackening in demand, must also be taken into account. For the first time in 14 years, statewide consumption did not increase in 2007, according to the California Energy Commission.

Also, 2008 is a presidential election year, and strange things tend to happen with gas prices, Shames said.

“Politics can throw the traditional gasoline-price equation into disarray,” he said.

Gasoline futures for January delivery rose to a trading record of $2.5175 a gallon yesterday before retreating 3.65 cents to settle at $2.4597 a gallon on the Nymex.

Retail gas prices, which typically lag in the futures market, are widely expected to rise to record highs in the spring. Analysts say futures investors are anticipating big gains by buying now, driving futures – and thus pump prices – higher.

“They're all jumping on the gasoline bandwagon,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, who predicts pump prices nationally will peak between $3.50 and $3.75 a gallon in the spring. The Energy Information Administration recently predicted prices will peak above $3.40 a gallon.

Kloza says he thinks gas prices will rise because refiners will again struggle to increase supplies before the peak summer driving season, raising concerns that there won't be enough to meet demand.

Prices nationally hit a record $3.227 a gallon in May amid a spate of unexpected refinery outages that kept supplies from growing as fast as many believed was necessary.

“I do think refiners are going to have their typical . . . struggles,” said Kloza, who nonetheless says they will produce enough gasoline and that the spring price spikes will be temporary.

At the pump, prices rose 1.9 cents overnight to a national average of $3 yesterday, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. After retreating from their May record, gas prices rose again in November, spiking above $3.11 a gallon nationally, and $3.42 in San Diego, when oil prices last threatened to rise to $100 a barrel.

Oil retreated from that lofty level as supplies appeared to be growing and demand seemed to be falling. But over the past several weeks, inventories have fallen domestically while demand has remained strong. Meanwhile, concerns about supply disruptions from the oil-rich Middle East have been fueled by Turkish attacks on Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and by Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

But analysts say the impact of the Bhutto assassination is fading. Meanwhile, several observers have raised concerns about Thursday's Energy Information Administration oil inventory report that showed inventories fell sharply last week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.