Oil prices slump

Reuters

Tokyo

Oil prices slumped by more than 6 percent on Friday after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a landmark referendum, causing huge market uncertainty and fracturing European efforts to forge greater unity.

Financial markets have been racked for months by worries about what Brexit, or a British exit from the European Union, would mean for Europe's stability, but were clearly not factoring in the risk of a leave vote.  The dollar fell below 100 yen for the first time since November 2013, while the pound dropped by the most in living memory. Brent crude LCOc1 was down $2.70 at $48.21 a barrel at around 0600 GMT.

U.S. crude CLc1 was down $2.65 at $47.46 a barrel.  Earlier, both futures were down by more the $3 or more than 6 percent, the biggest intra-day declines for both since April 18, when a meeting of large oil producers failed to agree on an output freeze.