O'ahu gasoline prices could dip under $3 for a gallon of regular next week, based on the maximum wholesale price set by the Hawai'i Public Utilities Commission yesterday.

The commission set the pre-tax wholesale price at $2.21 a gallon, or 44 cents less than the price ceiling a week earlier. The new cap takes effect Monday.

Motorists should start seeing lower gasoline prices on Monday or Tuesday, depending on how long it takes service stations to sell out of higher-priced fuel remaining in their inventory. Retail prices for gasoline in Honolulu averaged $3.41 yesterday, according to the American Automobile Association's Daily Fuel Gauge Report — about 50 percent higher than a year earlier.

The decline in wholesale price should translate into pump prices averaging $2.95 to $3.03 a gallon for regular on O'ahu, including 62 cents in taxes and a 12- to 20-cent dealer markup. The decline is in keeping with recent price declines on the Mainland.

Hawai'i's gas cap law, which took effect Sept. 1, sets maximum wholesale prices based on prices in Los Angeles, the Gulf Coast and New York. The cap limits only wholesale prices and doesn't require gasoline station owners to raise or lower prices.

Next week's decline follows a 9 cent-per-gallon rise in this week's price cap.

Also yesterday, state Attorney General Mark Bennett, as co-chairman of the antitrust committee of the National Association of Attorneys General, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission chairman Deborah Platt Majoras offering assistance by the states for any investigations into fuel prices.

Bennett said his committee was concerned about the rising cost of gasoline in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"In your capacity as chairman of the federal agency that enforces applicable antitrust and consumer protection laws related to the gasoline industry, we stand ready to assist you to investigate possible unlawful conduct by the petroleum industry and others that could be contributing to the increased cost of fuel," Bennett wrote in the letter, co-authored with Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers.