NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) - U.S. copper futures fell more than 2 percent Wednesday morning as concerns about declining Chinese demand for the metal eclipsed weakness in the dollar. For detailed report on global copper markets, click on [MET/L] * Copper for December delivery HGZ9 down 7.30 cents, or 2.6 percent, at $2.7915 a lb on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division by 10 a.m. EDT. * Range from $2.8780 to $2.7800. * COMEX estimated copper volume at 7,933 lots by 9 a.m. EDT (1700 GMT). * Stocks of copper at warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange rose 175 tonnes to 331,950 tonnes. Inventories have been trending higher since early July, reversing a trend of nearly constant falls earlier in the year. * China's imports of refined copper in August fell by one-quarter versus the month before, latest available data showed. It was the second month in a row that the No. 1 copper consumer had cut back on its demand for the industrial metal -- after record buying earlier in the year -- and reflected rising inventories of the metal. [ID:nHKG189580] * Yang Changhua, an analyst at China's state-backed research group Antaike, estimated the country may be holding nearly 1.2 million tonnes of refined copper stocks, or about 80 days of consumption. [ID:nHKG326569] * The lagging Chinese demand eclipsed weakness in the dollar, which would have ordinarily supported prices. The dollar hovered near a one-year low against a basket of major currencies as investors braced for the end of a Federal Reserve meeting, which was expected to keep U.S. interest rates at a record low levels. [USD/]. * LME copper for three-months delivery MCU3 traded at $6,137 a tonne in official rings, down from a close of $6,270 on Tuesday.

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