Russia has limited room for tapping one of its sovereign wealth funds before jeopardizing its investment-grade debt rating, according to Standard & Poor’s.

“If money is spent to support the economy, to support specific companies ― that would lead to a decline of those fiscal buffers beyond what we currently expect,” S&P analyst Christian Esters said in an interview in Moscow. The rainy-day funds “are strong mitigating factors for the stresses Russia has been experiencing.”

Russia is unsealing the $82 billion National Wellbeing Fund as lower oil prices pinch budget revenue and the stranglehold of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine limits access to credit. The stockpile, originally created to cover long-term outlays for social spending such as supporting the pension system, is down more than 13 percent from its peak three years ago.

While using about 20 percent of the fund, or $16 billion in dollar terms, to help companies “alone would probably not breach a threshold for us,” a downgrade is possible if such a decrease is compounded by additional sanctions and a prolonged decline in oil prices, according to Esters. (Bloomberg)