* YANCOAL AUSTRALIA: China-backed coal miner Yancoal Australia Ltd said on Wednesday it had exercised its option to buy a 29 percent stake in the Warkworth operation from Japan's Mitsubishi Corp for $230 million. The project had been part of a bidding war between Yancoal and commodity trader Glencore Plc

* ENECO: A commission representing shareholders in Dutch energy company Eneco NV on Tuesday criticised the company's management for trying to influence its sale process. Potential bidders include Shell and Fortum , among others.

* UBER: Uber is expected to tell a British employment appeal tribunal on Wednesday that its drivers are self-employed and not workers entitled to a range of extra benefits, less than a week after the firm was told it would lose its London licence.

* SHELL: A large fire in an electrical substation shut Royal Dutch Shell Plc's 227,586-barrel-per-day (bpd) Convent, Louisiana, refinery on Tuesday night, said sources familiar with plant operations.

* DYSON: James Dyson, the billionaire British inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner, said on Tuesday his company was working on developing an electric car to be launched by 2020.

* GOLD: Gold was largely unchanged on Wednesday after falling over one percent in the previous session on hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, while lingering North Korea worries supported prices.

* OIL: Brent oil prices rose on Wednesday, hovering around a 26-month high hit in the previous session, after U.S. data showed an unexpected drop in crude stocks as refineries boosted output and amid threats from Turkey to cut crude exports from Iraq.

* The UK blue chip index closed 0.2 percent lower at 7,285.74 points on Tuesday, although a rise in oil prices lifted energy stocks and a broker upgrade gave support to British American Tobacco.

* For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets

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 Radhika Rukmangadhan in Bengaluru)