** Shares of U.S. natural gas companies fall, tracking natgas futures NGA/

** U.S. natgas futures NGc1 down ~3% at $4.32 per million British thermal units (mmBtu); the contract closed at its highest since December 2022 for a second day in a row on Wednesday

** Natural gas prices fell from a 26-year high in the prior session on record output and a U.S. federal report showing last week's storage draw was smaller than expected

** The U.S. Energy Information Administration $(EIA)$ said energy firms pulled 80 bln cubic feet (bcf) of gas out of storage during the week ended February 28

** That was much smaller than the 92-bcf withdrawal analysts forecast in a Reuters poll, and compares with declines of 56 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2020-2024) average draw of 94 bcf for this time of year

** NextDecade NEXT.O down 4.8%, EQT Corp EQT.N falls 2.4%, Energy Transfer ET.N down 1.1% and Williams Companies WMB.N falls 1.2%

** ETFs - United States Natural Gas Fund UNG.P down ~3% and ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas BOIL.P falls 5.2%

(Reporting by Pooja Menon in Bengaluru)

((Pooja.Menon@thomsonreuters.com;))