Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company is planning to approach banks to refinance a $2bn three-year revolving credit facility in early February and wants to significantly lower the pricing on the deal.

Speaking at the MEED Project Finance 2013 conference in Dubai on 29 January, Kelly Thomson, head of structured finance at Mubadala, said: “We are going to be very aggressive on pricing this time.” The existing deal, put in place in 2010, was priced at 75 basis points above London interbank offered rate (Libor).

The new loan could be in place before the end of the first quarter of the year and Mubadala is understood to be targeting pricing lower than a $2bn deal arranged for Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) in November 2012. That loan was priced at 75 basis points, rising up to 100 basis points.

Banks will be given until late February to give their commitments on the loan. Currently 21 lenders are in the existing deal, a group of banks that make up the core relationship lenders to Mubadala. Thomson said some new banks could be invited to join the deal. “We don’t yet know if we will have more than 21 banks in the group as we have concerns about maintaining a larger group,” added Thomson.