By Andrey Ostroukh 

MOSCOW--The Russian ruble weakened to new lows in early trading on Friday, hit by a drop in oil prices after OPEC members rejected calls for drastic action to cut their oil output.

OPEC members' decision to keep their production ceiling unchanged sent Brent crude prices below $72 per barrel for the first time since mid-2010, threatening to put more of a brake on Russia's economic growth. The country receives around 50% of its revenue from exporting oil and gas.

The ruble touched an all-time low of 49.90 versus the dollar in the first minutes of trading on Moscow exchange, before recovering slightly to 49.57. This takes the ruble's year-to-date depreciation versus the greenback to 34%.

Against the euro, the ruble eased to 62.03 before recovering slightly to 61.72 as of 0712 GMT.

The Russian central bank has let the ruble float freely against the dollar euro since early November having previously intervened on currency markets to stem its loss in value. The central bank has said that it might intervene int the markets in future to prop up the ruble if it deems it necessary for the sake of Russia's financial stability.

Write to Andrey Ostroukh at andrey.ostroukh@wsj.com