Utah transportation leaders, though, are currently pondering a possible increase in the gas tax, and that could raise pump prices.

Peacock said Utah refineries have completed their fall maintenance period and there is now excess supply of gasoline in the state. He doesn't foresee any shortages even if Utah drivers rack up extra miles this holiday season.

Nationally, the continuing decline in prices has been so dramatic and so sudden, it is raising the prospect that gas prices could soon fall below $1 a gallon, something that hasn't been seen since March 1999.

For gas prices to get close to $1, oil prices probably would need to fall another $10 a barrel — something that would have been impossible to fathom during the first part of this year as oil prices soared near $150 per barrel. On Friday, light, sweet crude for January delivery settled at $40.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said Thursday on his blog that retail prices could fetch $1.25 a gallon soon in parts of the Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Already, some parts of the country are seeing prices around that level.

But Kloza does not believe prices will make it to $1.

More information on U.S. and Utah gas prices is available at www.fuelgaugereport.com.

---

Contributing: Mark Williams, Associated Press

---

E-mail: lynn@desnews.com