U.S. Seeking Facts on Refinery Situation : Lithuania: The Bush Administration is trying to determine if the Soviets shut off the oil flow to the facility.

Bush Administration officials anxiously sought to determine Wednesday whether Soviet authorities have cut off oil supplies to Lithuania’s only refinery, as asserted by officials of the Baltic republic.

“We have conflicting reports, and we’re looking into the situation,” a White House official said, declining to go beyond President Bush’s warning Tuesday that such a step would be met with “appropriate responses” by the United States.

The development, if confirmed, appears to move the United States closer to taking punitive action toward the Soviet Union--a step fraught with potential diplomatic repercussions--for the first time since relations between Washington and Moscow began to warm a year ago.

It also demonstrated the dilemma that Bush faces as he seeks to apply some pressure on the Soviet Union over its handling of the Lithuanian crisis without painting Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev into a political corner.

The President’s go-slow approach to Lithuania’s efforts to secede from the Soviet Union fit the pattern he has established for Administration responses to foreign policy developments, particularly those that threaten to unravel long-established relationships.

But the declaration of independence issued by the Lithuanian Parliament on March 11 has forced Bush to deal with a long-held U.S. policy under which the Soviet Union’s annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940 has never been officially accepted.

Seeking to explain the President’s approach, a White House official said the Administration favors eventual Lithuanian independence but also supports Gorbachev’s efforts to reform Soviet political and economic life. The White House believes those reforms could be threatened if Gorbachev is politically weakened by a successful Lithuanian secession.

“The goal is clear: We would like to see Lithuania free and clear,” a senior White House official said. “We think if any explosion is avoided, it’s going to happen. It may take a while.”

The official continued: “You can state your goals and your principles. But going beyond that almost inevitably can be grist for somebody’s mill for ratcheting up the situation. Then you become part of the problem. You’re backing Gorbachev into a corner, making him look bad. The feeling here is any influence we have is best wielded completely behind the scenes. But from a public standpoint, it’s a loser.”

In the wake of a National Security Council meeting held late Tuesday before news reports indicated that the oil flow had been curtailed, the Administration had reiterated its warning that the United States would mount “appropriate responses” if the Soviet Union carried out its threat to impose an economic squeeze on Lithuania.

In testimony Wednesday before the House Ways and Means Committee, Secretary of State James A. Baker III warned that “Soviet actions--even short of force--in Lithuania” are putting “commercial contacts” between the two countries “to risk.”

But Baker declined to spell out what action the Administration might take.

“Essentially,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, “it’s a matter of watching and waiting to see what happens. The problem is that we’ve been going through this process for a month or two--and there’s all kinds of maneuvering going on back and forth between the Soviet Union and Lithuania. And therefore, we don’t try to spend a whole lot of time by reading the tea leaves about what might happen or what they think’s going to happen or so forth.”

Times staff writer Art Pine contributed to this report.