The ruble headed for its lowest closing level on record as Brent crude extended its slide while Societe Generale SA said the currency is too strong relative to the price of oil. The ruble fell 0.3 percent to 71.190 as of 1 p.m. in Moscow, pushing declines into a fifth consecutive week. Brent crude dropped 0.8 percent to $36.57 per barrel The ruble, which has weakened 6.6 percent in December, may have further to fall because the currency hasn’t kept pace with the 19 percent slide in its main export earner, pressuring the state budget which gets almost 50 percent of its revenue from sales of oil and natural gas. Brent in rubles dropped on Monday to 2,576 per barrel, the least since 2010. “Oil is the queen of the ball,” said Yury Tulinov, the head of research at Societe Generale’s Rosbank PJSC unit in Moscow. The currency, which […]