Russian budget can cope with $50 oil: Pankin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has enough reserves to ensure its budget will not be affected even if the price of oil falls as low as $50 a barrel, deputy finance minister Dmitry Pankin said on Monday.

The price of Russia's main crude, Urals URL-E, has fallen by over 20 percent in the past two months to around $104 a barrel, though it still above the $82 rate factored into the current government budget.

"I don't think that ($82) it is too optimistic. But still we have enough reserve in our budget if the oil price drops to $50-60," Pankin said at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit.

Asked if Russia would be prepared to spend its reserve fund to plug any holes left in the budget by falling revenue from the energy sector, Pankin replied "Yes".

"In that case there will be more a question that the National Wealth Fund will not grow according to our projections," he said.

As of the start of this month, Russia had $142.6 billion in its reserve fund which acts as a cushion for the budget and is set at around 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Any surplus oil windfalls are channeled into the National Wealth Fund, which is earmarked for riskier investments, and is projected to reach about $100 billion by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski and Toni Vorobyova; Editing by Andy Bruce)