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Copper futures in New York firmed at the open on Thursday, but continued to tread in well-trodden ranges as news of a rejection of early contract talks at Chile's Codelco gave the market a modest bounce, sources said.

"We're seeing some support from the Codelco news this morning, but the market is not having a great response to it. There is nothing really behind it to push us out of this morning's range ... we have been stuck in this 50-point range for the past hour," said one COMEX floor dealer.

By 10:40 a.m. EDT (1440 GMT), copper for December delivery was up 2.05 cents at $3.4250 a lb on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division, near the upper end of its early $3.39-$3.4330 trading band.

Spot October was untraded at $3.3880.

COMEX copper volume at 10:00 a.m. was estimated at a mere 3,000 lots.

Sentiment was lifted after some 6,000 workers at the Norte division of state-run Codelco, the largest division of the world's largest copper company, rejected early negotiation of a new three-year contract.

Chile, the world's biggest copper miner, produced 392,130 tonnes of the red metal in September, down 9.8 percent from the same month last year, the government said on Thursday.

Traders noted that price action in the benchmark December copper contract for the week has been relatively calm, with little involvement from the funds, who for the most part, have taken to the sidelines during this week's barrage of U.S. economic data.

After the copper close on Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady at 5.25 percent for a third straight meeting, citing economic cooling while warning that it was closely monitoring price pressures.

Thursday's data showed new orders of U.S.-made durable good surge to a much greater-than-expected 7.8 percent in September, while new U.S. single-family home sales increased 5.3 percent in September to an annualized rate of 1.075 million.

"I think the more important number will be the U.S. GDP number out tomorrow," said Edward Meir, metals analyst with Man Financial.

"If we get another surprise on the upside, that could kind of kick-start things," Meir added.

However, another huge influx of material into London Metal Exchange warehouses continued to worry the bulls, holding copper back from joining rallies this week in most of the other base metals, analysts said.

"Given the stock rises of late this is not so surprising, especially with the metal tending to build up in the US and also with withdrawals diminishing," said William Adams, metals analyst with BaseMetals.com.

LME copper warehouse inventories climbed 2,450 tonnes to 126,725 tonnes on Thursday, while COMEX stocks rose 174 short tons to 23,104 tons on Wednesday.

The arrival of material in St Louis on Wednesday marked the first time this warehouse has held metal since 2003, providing physical evidence of a slowdown in demand from the housing sector in the United States, said Peter Richardson, chief metals economist at Deutsche Bank.

LME three-months copper last traded up $70 at $7,525 a tonne from Wednesday's kerb close.