Copper rose on Friday, building on strength gained from the previous session after a funding plan for banks allayed fears over Europe's festering debt crisis, but the region's financial problems were expected to keep weighing on prices.

The board of Norilsk Nickel , the world's largest nickel and palladium producer, approved on Tuesday a public buyback of its shares at $306 per ordinary share and $30.6 per ADR.

Gold slid on Friday, closing its worst week since June, as profit-taking by investors and a spike in the U.S. dollar outweighed the desire for a safer haven. Gold tumbled in early U.S. hours on apparent investor liquidation, but clawed back much of its loss by mid-afternoon as the resignation of European Central Bank policymaker Juergen Stark reignited aversion to riskier assets. But even as US stocks fell nearly 3 percent and other commodities tumbled, gold came under renewed pressure as two weeks of extreme volatility for bullion rattled some confidence in its bull run -- despite the prospect of a second recession.

China's top offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd said a Canadian court had approved its acquisition of struggling oil sands company Opti Canada Inc.

A consortium of Indian steel and mining firms led by the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has bid for four blocks of mines in Afghanistan, SAIL said in a statement on Tuesday, proposing to set up a steel plant in the country.

The world needs at least 100 million tonnes of additional iron ore supply each year for the next eight years to meet demand growth projections in steel making, miner Rio Tinto said on Thursday. At that rate, global iron ore production would almost double over the period, based on industry trade data -- largely covered in the early years at least by expansions underway among the major miners, including Rio Tinto.

US crude futures ended a choppy session slightly lower on Wednesday, slipping late as equities markets pared gains and as government data released earlier showing a big rise in crude oil stocks weighed on prices.

Private equity groups First Reserve Corp and AMCI International have sold A$390 million ($416 million) worth of shares in Australian miner Whitehaven Coal , which failed to find a buyer for the company this year.

Australia's Macarthur Coal has backed a slightly sweetened A$4.9 billion ($5.2 billion) takeover offer from Peabody Energy and ArcelorMittal . Peabody and ArcelorMittal raised their offer by 3 percent to A$16 a share and will also add Macarthur's A$0.16 a share dividend, for a total offer value of A$16.16. Macarthur bowed to the higher offer after fending off four takeover attempts over the past three years.

Plains All-American Pipeline plans to restart its Rainbow oil pipeline in Alberta on Tuesday now that it has final regulatory approval after a four-month outage, the company said. Alberta's energy regulator said last week the company could restart the 187,000 barrel a day pipeline provided it met a number of conditions, including operating the line at 75 percent of its maximum pressure. The pipeline has been down since late April, when it ruptured and spilled 28,000 barrels of crude in a wilderness area near a native community.

The U.S. State Department's final environmental review of a proposed Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline will affirm an earlier finding that the project will have "limited adverse environmental impacts," The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Global miner BHP Billiton is looking to build a new rail line between some of its inland Australian coal mines and the coast in a move that could threaten dominant coal haulage firm QR National, a newspaper said on Thursday.