Floods on the northern Pacific Coast and a delayed pipeline project in the eastern United States limited the financial performance of utility, gas processing and byproduct marketing conglomerate AltaGas Ltd. last year.

AltaGas, which reports in Canadian dollars (C$1.00/US 79 cents) wrote $271 million off the value of a 10% share that U.S. subsidiary WGL Holdings Inc. has in the troubled Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The 303-mile natural gas conduit between Virginia and West Virginia is designed to transport gas from the Appalachian Basin.

The seven-year-old project is 92% built but delayed by marathon protests and lawsuits against its crossings of water bodies and the Appalachian Trail. Costs have jumped by 68% to US$6.2 billion. The current completion target date is...