The falling oil prices and a turmoil in Asian markets gave a heavy start to the day on the Oslo Stock Exchange. After about half an hour, the main index had fallen by 3.4 percent to 525.44 points.
The biggest drop was experienced by the oil company Seadrill with a decline of 11.5 percent. Also ,Statoil (-3.6 percent), DNB (-3.4 percent) and Norwegian (-4.6 percent) falls from the beginning.
A barrel of North Sea oil traded for $ 28.09.
Red numbers also made their mark on the major European exchanges. FTSE 100 index in London fell by 1.8 percent while the DAX 30 index in Frankfurt and the CAC 40 index in Paris fell by 2.3 percent from the start.
It was expected that European stock exchanges would fall after the fall in the Asian markets earlier in the day.
Source: NTB scanpix/ Norway Today