* Coming up: Fed's Dudley speaks at 1500 GMT (Recasts, adds comment, changes dateline from Melbourne)
By Pratima Desai
London, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The price of copper rose on Friday along with oil and European shares on expectations of dovish comments from a senior U.S. Federal Reserve official but gains were limited by the continuing concerns for the global economy.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange was trading up 0.7 percent at $4,478 a tonne at 1117 GMT but is on track for its biggest weekly drop in a month.
Global growth concerns have been aggravated by large losses in bank shares, the potential for a financial crisis and worries about the U.S. Federal Reserve raising rates despite signs of economic slowdown in the United States.
However, Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday stressed U.S. interest rates were not on a "pre-set" path to "normal".
"The mood is slightly better in base metals and oil. The market to an increasing extent doubts whether the Fed will hike rates again. Yesterday it was actually pricing in rate cuts," said Danske Bank analyst Jens Pederson.
"The speech today from a prominent Fed member and voter will be key today."
The Fed's William Dudley speaks at 1500 GMT.
Dudley last week said financial conditions had tightened considerably since U.S. interest rates were raised in December and monetary policy makers will have to take that into consideration.
Base metal prices are expected to come under renewed pressure on Monday when China returns from the week-long New Year break.
"Shanghai stocks may try to play catch-up with European and U.S. stocks and that normally feeds into base metals," a metals trader said. "But there's still some short-covering to go."
Three-month aluminium rose 0.6 percent to $1,494 a tonne, zinc rose 0.8 percent to $1,719, lead gained 0.7 percent to $1,839 and tin slipped 0.9 percent to $15,435 a tonne.
Nickel gained 1.3 percent to $7,665 a tonne. It fell to a 13-year low of $7,550 a tonne on Wednesday. Nickel prices have slumped as demand from Chinese stainless steel mills has tumbled leaving the market in surplus.
However, the drop this week is due to options market activity, Kingdom Futures said in a note.
"For the last few days there had been a build up of activity in the nickel options market with put options being bought with strikes down to $6000 in December," it said.
"Quite simply, as the new options were hedged they pushed the market down and triggered selling against existing positions and the whole move became a self-fulfilling story."
