“When the bills come in after the Christmas shopping, there will be less disposable income in people’s pockets because of the increase in expenditures for oil, which they can’t avoid,” he said. He predicted that the oil price increases would shave at least a quarter of a percentage point from the gross domestic product next year.

Mr. Goldstein said the slower growth would be an “unintended negative consequence” of the Federal Reserve’s recent quantitative easing, which resulted in a lowering in the value of the dollar and encouraged investors to put money into hard assets like oil. Because oil is priced in dollars, global traders tend to bid up its price as the dollar falls in value against other currencies.

Energy analysts said that oil and gasoline prices were probably close to their wintertime peak because Americans typically drive less in January and prices tend to fall. But when the weather warms up, they predict another surge.

“We will have a spring rally that will take us to between $3.10 and $3.50” a gallon for gasoline at the pump, Mr. Kloza predicted.

Oil-producing nations and consuming nations like the United States have been fairly satisfied with oil prices the last few years because they have remained high enough to encourage investments but substantially lower than three summers ago, when crude reached $147 a barrel and Americans paid $4 a gallon.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which meets in Quito, Ecuador, on Saturday, is not expected to change crude production quotas that were set two years ago. Saudi Arabian oil officials, who are the most powerful in the organization, say they are satisfied with an oil price of $70 to $90 a barrel.

The recent rise in oil and gasoline prices partly reflects the modest economic recovery.

The Energy Department has estimated that oil demand in 2010 rose 1.7 percent, or 320,000 barrels a day, from last year. The department expects that demand will increase an additional 0.9 percent, or 170,000 barrels a day, in 2011. The nation now consumes 19.1 million barrels a day.