The owners of the Shuweihat 2 power and water plant in Abu Dhabi may delay plans to issue an $800m bond until early 2013.

The bond, originally expected to be issued in October, is a key part of plans to refinance the almost $2bn of debt raised to fund the project in 2009. New terms on a $600m commercial bank tranche provided by the same group of banks from the 2009 deal are understood to have already been agreed.

Under the terms of the refinancing, a $1bn Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) loan and a $950m bank loan will be reduced in size and repriced at a lower margin. It is one of the few examples of a regional project being refinanced in the bond markets.