A loan totaling more than $150 million will help Bangladesh address the mounting energy challenges in its expanding economy, the Asian Development Bank said.

The ADB said it approved a $167 million loan, with as much as $60 million more possible, to help Bangladesh tap into and deliver natural gas from the Titas field north of the capital city, Dhaka.

"By addressing gas supply constraints and transmission bottlenecks, the project will increase the energy sector's contribution to sustainable economic growth in Bangladesh," Hongwei Zhang, a regional finance specialist at the ADB, said in a statement.

The loan will help finance the installation of pumping infrastructure at the Titas field, the largest in the country. A transmission line of 112 miles long is also planned.

Asian economies, China and India in particular, are growing at nearly twice the rate of their Western counterparts. That growth translates to higher demand for oil and natural gas.

The ADB says the Bangladeshi economy is growing faster than the development of natural gas, which leaves the country looking to bridge the gap by importing liquefied natural gas.

"The project will help the government address the country's energy crisis by making available additional clean energy, particularly imported natural gas, through the transmission network," the ADB specialist said.

Natural gas accounts for about 75 percent of the total energy consumed in Bangladesh and the primary driver of economic growth.

Chevron in October said it was in discussions to dispose of its interest in Bangladesh. The company's subsidiary in Bangladesh started operations from an expansion project at the Bibiyana gas asset in the northeastern part of the country in 2014. The additional development boosted production capacity from Bangladesh by more than 300 million cubic feet per day to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day.