March 16 (Reuters) -
Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening 7points lower at 7,133 on Friday, according to financial bookmakers. * SHELL: Amnesty International on Friday accused international oil majorsShell and Eni of negligence when addressing spills in
Nigeria. Royal Dutch Shell Plc is selling its upstream assets in
NewZealand to
Austria's OMV AG OMVV.VI for
$578 million, the companies said onThursday. * BP: BP is seeking buyers for its stake in a 50-year-old oil and gasbusiness in
Egypt as it focuses on newer deepwater gas fields off the country'sMediterranean coast, banking sources said. * NEX GROUP:
Britain's NEX Group Plc said it had received apreliminary takeover approach from
U.S.-based exchange operator CME Group, in a move to create a cross-border trading powerhouse. * CMC MARKETS Online trading platform CMC Markets Plc said onThursday it had launched contracts for differences (CFDs) and spreadbettingofferings for cryptocurrencies following significant interest from itsusers. * GOLD: Gold prices held firm on Friday as tensions between the
UnitedKingdom and
Russia and renewed
U.S. political concerns offset worries about apossible
U.S. rate hike next week. * OIL: Oil prices were set to fall this week, with both benchmarks droppingslightly on Friday, on concerns among investors about rising supply from the
U.S. and other nations threatening to undermine efforts by OPEC and otherproducers to tighten the market. * The
UK blue chip FTSE 100 index closed up 0.1 percent at 7,139.76points on Thursday, after a three-day losing streak as
Britain's third-biggestcompany, Unilever, fell after announcing it would make
Rotterdam its sole legalhome a year before Brexit. * For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets *
UK CORPORATE DIARY: Berkeley Group Holdings Trading Statement Release J D Wetherspoon PLC Half Year 2018 Earnings Release Investec PLC Pre-Close Briefing Mitie Group PLC Full Year 2018 Trading Statement Release TODAY'
S UK PAPERS > Financial Times > Other business headlines Multimedia versions of Reuters Top News are now available for: * 3000 Xtra : visit http://topnews.session.rservices.com * For Top News : http://topnews.reuters.com (Reporting by Siju Varghese)