Prices of gasoline and crude oil from which it's made shot to records yesterday.

The price spikes were the result of worries about potential terrorist attacks in oil giant Saudi Arabia, government warnings of unusually stormy weather that could disrupt U.S. oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico and concern that aging U.S. refineries can't keep up with demand for gasoline.

"We also broke an important barrier. Once oil broke $62.50, a lot of mutual funds and speculators started buying," says Peter Beutel, head of Cameron Hanover energy consultants and veteran energy tracker. They expect the price momentum to bring higher prices and, thus, profits for those who buy now.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate, also called light, sweet crude oil, hit $63.99 a barrel in New York trading yesterday and closed at a record $63.94, up $1.63 from Friday's record close.

Helping ignite the oil fire: The U.S. shut its embassy and other offices in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil supplier, for two days because of a "threat against U.S. government buildings" there. And Britain said it believes terrorists plan to strike Saudi Arabia soon.

Beutel agrees with "a mild consensus that's emerging" among analysts that oil will hit $70 to $72 a barrel by Labor Day, less than a month off.

Adjusted for inflation, oil would have to hit $86.20 to match the then-record $39 reported February 1981.

Oil accounts for about half the price of gasoline. If oil held steady at $72, gas eventually would be about $3.40 a gallon.

Though well less than that, gasoline nevertheless has jumped to a record nationwide average $2.368 a gallon for unleaded regular, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported yesterday. That's up a hefty 7.7 cents from the previous week and is 5.2 cents more than the previous record on July 18.

"The nationwide average could easily push through $2.50 per gallon this week," says Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. Pump prices haven't yet reflected all the rise in wholesale gas prices, he says.

In Hawai'i, where gasoline prices are the highest in the nation, the average price for a gallon of regular hit a record high $2.675 yesterday, according to the American Automobile Association.

Hawai'i's record high was 2 cents higher than Sunday, 10 cents higher than a month ago and about 33 cents higher than a year ago. Maui had the highest fuel prices in Hawai'i at $2.899 a gallon for regular. On the Big Island, the average was $2.727, less than a cent off its record high reached last week. Honolulu's average was $2.578.

Beutel says every penny that gas goes up costs the nation $3.8 million a day.

"It makes no sense to me that we aren't seeing it" slowing the economy, he says. "I have a very bad feeling that one day we'll wake up and this will have caught up with us, and it will be misery. I don't see how this can keep going."