Retail gasoline prices rose over the weekend for the first time in nearly three months, though crude prices fell today ahead of an OPEC meeting in Algeria where oil producing countries are expected to announced huge production cuts.

After hitting a low of $1.6559 gallon Friday, gas prices rose over the weekend to break an 86-day streak begun in July after prices topped $4.11 per gallon, according to the Oil Price Information Service.

With average wholesale costs rising 20 cents per gallon or more since late November, "there's a sense that the Autumn low of $1.6559 gal may indeed represent the 2008 low water mark for street prices," OPIS analyst Tom Kloza said in a note.

Light, sweet crude for January on the New York Mercantile Exchange peaked briefly above $50 a barrel early today. Oil rose on cartel members' comments about upcoming cuts, with support from a weakening dollar and cold weather, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

Those early gains were lost with new hints over the severity of the economic downturn. Today, Toyota said it would indefinitely delay a new assembly plant in Mississippi due to auto industry downturn.

Growth in China's factory output fell to its lowest level in nearly seven years as trade plunged.

Industrial output rose 5.4 percent in November from a year earlier, down from October's 8.2 percent growth, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. An employee of the bureau who refused to give his name said it was the smallest monthly expansion since February 2002, when factory output grew by 2.7 percent.