** Shares of U.S. natural gas companies up, tracking a rise in natgas futures NGA/

** U.S. natgas futures NGc1 up 2% at $2.898 per million British thermal units

** Natgas prices climbed to a one-week high on near-record flows to liquefied natural gas export plants and forecasts for hotter-than-normal weather to continue through the end of August

** Shares of natgas companies: CNX Resources CNX.N up ~1%, EQT Corp EQT.N rise 1.4%, and Cheniere Energy LNG.N gains marginally

** ETFs — United States Natural Gas Fund UNG.P up 3.7% and ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas BOIL.P rise 4.9%

(Reporting by Sumit Saha in Bengaluru)

((Sumit.Saha@thomsonreuters.com;))