(Reuters) - Commodities trader and miner Glencore <GLEN.L> said on Thursday it would buy back shares worth up to $1 billion in a programme of purchases running to the end of 2018.
The company's shares were up 2 percent in early London trading.
Glencore said the programme would be split into two halves, one of 350 million pounds ($463.44 million) worth of shares to be bought by Aug. 7 and the remainder at the discretion of the broker Citigroup.
Mining companies have recovered from the commodity price crash of 2015-16 allowing them to return cash to shareholders via share buy-backs and higher dividends.
Glencore is facing scrutiny from U.S. authorities who have demanded the company hand over documents about its business in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria as part of a corruption probe.
Glencore shares in London are hovering near one-year lows and are down about 18 percent so far this year.
(Reporting by Justin George Varghese in Bengaluru and Zandi Shabalala in London; editing by Patrick Graham and Jane Merriman)
