that does suggest that pdflatex is getting called somewhere else.
Maybe you can edebug the export function and check the value of default-directory to see where it is getting called.
You could also try this
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(defun my-build (quoted-tex-file)
(message "Building %s. Called from %s" quoted-tex-file default-directory))
(setq org-latex-pdf-process 'my-build)
#+END_SRC
It won't build the pdf, but it will tell you in the messages where it was called from. It might help figure out what is happening.
John
-----------------------------------
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803