April 11 (Reuters) - Most base metals fell on Monday, with aluminium prices sliding to their lowest in nearly four weeks, weighed down by a stronger U.S. dollar and demand concerns as top consumer China continues to grapple with lockdowns and COVID-19 cases.

Benchmark aluminium on the London Metal Exchange was down 1.2% at $3,335, as of 0509 GMT, after touching the lowest since March 17, while copper dipped 0.6% to $10,265 a tonne.

The most-traded May aluminium contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 2.7% at 21,215 yuan ($3,329.31) a tonne by noon break.

ShFE nickel dropped 3.4% to 206,100 yuan ($32,343.62) a tonne, after falling to its lowest since March 23 earlier in the session.

"A stronger dollar and resurgence of COVID-19 in China are major headwinds for the industrial metals right now," said Jigar Trivedi, a commodities analyst at Mumbai-based broker Anand Rathi Shares.

"However, looking at the LME warehouse inventories, the demand is at pre-COVID levels and energy cost is higher owing to Russia-Ukraine crisis, the outlook for new age materials, like battery metals aluminium, zinc and copper is bullish."

The U.S. dollar index topped 100 for the first time in nearly two years on Friday, and was up 0.1% at 99.904 earlier in the day, supported by the prospect of a more aggressive pace of Federal Reserve tightening.

A stronger dollar makes greenback-denominated metals more expensive for buyers using other currencies.

Chinese financial centre Shanghai, a city of 26 million people, has been locked down under its "zero tolerance" for COVID-19. The city reported 25,173 new asymptomatic cases and 914 symptomatic cases for April 10.

China's factory-gate and consumer prices rose faster than expected in March as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, persistent supply chain bottlenecks and production snags caused by local COVID flare-ups added to commodity cost pressures.

FUNDAMENTALS

STOCKS: Asian shares slipped ahead of a week packed with central bank meetings and U.S. inflation data, while the euro eked out a gain on relief the far right did not win the first round of the French presidential elections.

LME PRICES: Zinc was up 0.5% at $4,277 a tonne, lead eased 0.2% to $2,390 and tin fell 0.5% to $43,500.

($1 = 6.3722 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)