Can't get NODE_ENV to stick on my MEAN stack on open shift

I have:

• added export NODE_ENV=production to app-root/data/.bashprofile (and echo $NODE_ENV shows production)
• Tried rhc set-env NODE_ENV=production -a myapp which generates Setting environment variable(s) ... Server returned an unexpected error code: 501
• Created an .openshift/action_hooks directory in my local repo and added the line export NODE_ENV=production to both a start and a pre_start file, committed and pushed to openshift
• Tried the .openshift/action_hooks/pre_start_* aswell

• Declared a root variable (as tipsed by @JuJoDi below) in the beginning of my server.js file, now it looks lite this:

  var express = require('express'),
   routes = require('./routes'),
   api = require('./routes/api'),
   http = require('http'), 
   path = require('path'),
   everyauth = require('everyauth'), 
   connect = require('connect'),
   env = process.env.NODE_ENV ? process.env.NODE_ENV : "process.env.NODE_ENV is null";
  

I'm then printing out using this route:

app.get('/version', function(req,res){
        res.json({
            "app.get('env')" : app.get('env'),
            "process.env.NODE_ENV" : process.env.NODE_ENV,
                            "Global env" : env
        });
    });

What happens is that app.get('env') always returns 'development' and process.env.NODE_ENV is not printed at all (null value)

Has anyone got any ideas why this isn't working?

UPDATE

I created a minimalistic node server, still can't get any env-variables to work on open shift:

    var http = require('http');

    var port = process.env.OPENSHIFT_NODEJS_PORT || 3000;
    var ipaddress = process.env.OPENSHIFT_NODEJS_IP || process.env.OPENSHIFT_INTERNAL_IP || 'localhost';
    var env = process.env.NODE_ENV

    http.createServer(function (req, res) {
      res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
      res.end('' + process.env.NODE_ENV + "|" + env);
    }).listen(port, ipaddress);