Copper and aluminum headed for a second consecutive weekly decline in London on concern that economic slowdowns in the U.S. and China are set to deepen, sapping demand for industrial metals. Copper has dropped 8.5 percent this week and aluminum has shed 9.8 percent, their biggest declines in seven weeks. Home prices in the U.S., the second-largest user of the metals, dropped the most in at least 18 years and builders broke ground on the fewest houses since record-keeping began, government reports said yesterday. China’s economy is already growing at the slowest pace in seven years. “It’s gravity taking over,” Kevin Tuohy, a trader at MF Global Ltd. in London, said today by phone. “Inventories keep building up, demand is weak.” Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange fell $17.25, or 0.6 percent to $3,072.75 a metric ton as of 10 a.m. local time. Aluminum fell $9, or 0.7 percent, to $1,321 a ton. LME-monitored stockpiles of copper, the metal that tracks global industrial production, have swelled more than eightfold since 2004 and aluminum inventories almost quadrupled in the past three years as the world economy sank into a recession. Economic growth in China, the largest user of all industrial metals, may slow to 6.3 percent this quarter from a year earlier, according to a survey by Bloomberg News, after expanding 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter. Copper inventory piled up most in Europe, accounting for almost half of total LME metal stockpiles at 424,625 tons. Asian warehouses make up for the smallest build up, at 84,950 tons. Antam’s Concern PT Aneka Tambang, Indonesia’s second-largest nickel producer, expects global consumption of the metal to fall 30 percent this year as steelmakers are running at about 50 percent capacity, said Alwin Syah Loebis, president director. The company, known as Antam, counts South Korea’s Posco and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. as customers. Nickel is mostly used to produce stainless steel. “Because of the current China condition, our exports to China dropped,” Loebis said yesterday in an interview at the company’s headquarters in South Jakarta. “China may see a little increase in demand this year on its infrastructure focus, but they may fill this need domestically.” Nickel fell $100, or 0.9 percent, to $10,900 a ton, taking this year’s decline to 6.8 percent. Among other LME traded metals, lead dropped $15 to $1,055 a ton, and zinc fell $14 to $1,105 a ton. Tin lost $395, or 3.5 percent, to $11,000 a ton. Tin extended its decline after the LME reported that inventories monitored increased by 5 percent to 8,950 tons, the highest since April.

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