As oil costs surged this year, manufacturers raised the prices of a lot of products - not just gasoline but lotions, toothpaste, plastics and many more that use oil as a raw material. Now oil costs are plunging, but other prices are not.

Even though oil prices have fallen toward $100 a barrel from $147 less than two months ago, many companies that cited higher energy costs for increasing prices are resisting a rollback, saying they still need to recover money lost in the run-up.

Crude oil prices slid yesterday $5.75 a barrel to $109.71, down 25 percent from their high of July 11, as Hurricane Gustav crossed near New Orleans without damaging oil production facilities. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 220 points before falling as energy company shares lost ground.

As oil tumbles, prices at the pump have come down. But the costs of many other products have not.

Procter & Gamble, for example, has raised by 7 percent to 10 percent the prices it charges retailers for items made with ingredients derived from oil. The company is planning to maintain the increase "to recover costs already incurred," Paul Fox, a spokesman, said.

Such decisions will come as little relief for thousands of retailers and wholesalers that have been forced to squeeze margins instead of passing their elevated costs to consumers, who have cut back on consumption of finished goods as their bills for groceries and gas jumped.

P&G;, Dow Chemical, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., as well as other big users of oil-based raw materials, are waiting to see whether oil prices will stay down or continue to fall before they commit to price cuts.

"Everybody still feels there is too much uncertainty to be clear about what action they should take," said Ali Dibadj, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, who specializes in companies that use oil-based raw materials in making a variety of consumer products. "They won't immediately drop their prices."