Hurricane Ike may be far from Virginia, but local residents are likely to feel its wrath in the form of higher gas prices.

Prices at the pump are likely to jump in the Richmond area today and over the weekend as Ike threatens major Gulf Coast oil refineries and pipelines, several local petroleum industry experts said yesterday.

"You are going to see, immediately, a 15to 20-cent jump in gasoline," said John Zehler Jr., president of Virginia Fuels Inc., a Mechanicsville-based petroleum distributor.

How much prices rise, and for how long, depends on the damage Ike does along the Gulf Coast.

"Buckle your seatbelt because it is going to be quite a ride," Zehler said.

As refineries in the hurricane's path shut down and evacuated employees, retailers have been hit with sharp increases in wholesale prices, forcing them to raise prices at the pump, Zehler and others said.

"Everything we get here comes out of the Gulf Coast," said Dave McComas, president and chief executive officer of the Fas Mart Convenience Stores Inc. chain.

"[Suppliers] are telling us that this is going to be a bigger supply interruption than we had during [Hurricanes] Rita and Katrina," he said. "They have put everybody on allocation, which means we are limited in the amount of gasoline we can buy."

Gas prices rose from about $2.61 per gallon to more than $3 per gallon in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, knocking out refineries and pipelines. Prices for regular, self-serve gasoline averaged $3.51 in the Richmond area yesterday and $3.54 in Virginia, according to a survey by the motor club AAA. The national average was $3.67.

Mike O'Connor, president of the Virginia Petroleum, Convenience and Grocery Association, also predicted a spike in prices overnight.

"I don't think there is any question that it will be up [today]. It is just a question of how much that is going to continue over the weekend," he said. Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com.