Gas prices are edging up in South Carolina and could hit the three dollars per gallon mark after the first of the year.

That's just the start of what can be expected as an upward movement in gas prices over the next few years, as stated by analysts.

The New Year's gift is not that good stated Tom Crosby, one of the spokesmen for AAA Carolinas, as gas prices are raising in every state at present.

As the winter weather is colder, oil companies are refining more oil to transform them to more profitable fuel oil for heating homes, rather than refining it into gasoline, as stated by Crosby. But there are factors that won't soon change for good, for which the prices are getting higher.

Crude oil prices is getting affected by the weaker U. S. dollar, pushing the price to more than ninety dollars per barrel, and foreign demand is mounting as the world economy pulls it out of recession, said Crosby.

All these factors together are pushing prices higher than expected at the end of the year.

In South Carolina, the average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is two dollars and ninety cents which is twenty three cents higher than the previous month and forty four cents from one year earlier. These facts were given by AAA. Columbia's average is around two dollars and ninety one cents.

The lowest average price is seen in the Myrtle Beach, in the state which is in the tune of two dollars and eighty seven cents. Charleston recorded the highest price of two dollars and ninety two cents where as the average of Greenville is two dollars and eighty nine cents