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The agency noted that commodity prices had recovered from record lows earlier this year, but were expected to remain volatile.
Last week, S&P lifted its price forecasts for zinc, aluminium, iron ore and gold.
It said the upwards revisions had not yet led to ratings upgrades for the major miners (being BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vale, Glencore, Anglo American and Fortescue Metals Group), but Rio, FMG and Vale had been upgraded to stable from negative.
Only BHP still has a negative outlook, but S&P sees a lower chance of a downgrade than in February.
"We believe our revised price assumptions and the big miners' ongoing credit-protective measures will result in performance and credit metrics broadly consistent with our existing rating parameters," S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Tommy Trask said.
“We therefore currently see the risk of further downgrades as less than one-in-three for the largest rated mining companies.”
Aside from Glencore, all are major producers of iron ore, and as a result, S&P believes the commodity will be the most important contributor to their future results.
S&P revised its iron ore forecasts up by $US10 to $50/t for the rest of this year, compared with the Metal Bulletin average so far of $53.77/t.
Next year’s forecast was revised down by $5/t to $40/t as Chinese stimulus measures fade.
Deleveraging is expected to remain the priority over growth.
Vale, Glencore and Anglo have suspended dividend payments, while BHP and Rio both abandoned their progressive dividend policies.
Bucking the trend, FMG actually lifted its FY16 dividend to A15c per share from 5c/share a year earlier.
“Miners have already seen the first fruits of the new flexible dividend policies in improved discretionary cash flows and leverage, which played an important role in our recent rating actions,” S&P said.
“We believe that the deleveraging process, supported by low dividend payouts, will continue through 2017.”
S&P believes the big miners will reach their deleveraging targets by the end of next year, after which time dividends may rise.
