Executives of oil terminal operator Zenith Energy left Portland mayoral aides believing, falsely, that the company’s Willamette River facility no longer handled tar sands crude or shipped petroleum products to other ports, according to the hand-written notes a mayoral aide took during a March meeting with company officials.

The notes indicate the executives said the company’s terminal along the Willamette River in Northwest Portland was “not currently handling tar sands” crude oil.

The notes, taken by Mayor Ted Wheeler’s sustainability adviser, Amy Rathfelder, also indicate Zenith executives said they had ceased exports from the terminal. The city provided Rathfelder’s notes to The Oregonian/OregonLive in response to a public records request.

Zenith had in fact been receiving, storing and shipping tar sands crude. It continues to do so.

Company officials strongly deny they gave city officials misleading information. They acknowledge their firm handles petroleum harvested from oil sands formations in Canada, including loading it onto ships that carry it to ports outside Oregon.

They never told city officials otherwise, Zenith vice president Grady Reamer said last week, nearly a month after The Oregonian/OregonLive first published a story about the city’s notes from the Zenith meeting.

Reamer said that company officials told the aides, accurately, that their firm no longer handles bitumen, which is the raw form of crude extracted from Canadian oil sands. He said they told Wheeler staffers the company had transitioned to handling dilbit, which is a combination of bitumen and a lighter form of petroleum.

He also told them the firm had ceased exports from the Willamette River terminal, he said, because in the company’s lingo, the term “export” only applies to sending materials to another country, not to ports in California, Washington or other U.S. locations. “We believe the term ‘export’ is commonly understood to mean shipment to another country,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

City officials came away with the impression the firm no longer handled Canadian oil sands crude and no longer pumped it into ships for transport to distant ports, Rathfelter told The Oregonian/OregonLive in August. Rathfelder, who no longer works for the city, has not responded to a request made a week ago for comment on the company’s new assertions.

The false impression that Wheeler’s staff took away from the meeting followed an earlier incident in which Zenith executives misled state environmental regulators and dodged requirements to conduct an oil spill preparedness exercise.

Technical data the company provided to state regulators show its dilbit is extracted from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. Oil extracted from the site is commonly referred to as tar sands, a label that is also applied to products derived from that oil formation.

Zenith executives met in City Hall with Rathfelder, external relations director Jennifer Arguinzoni and the mayor’s chief of staff, Kristin Dennis. Wheeler himself stepped into the meeting briefly to say hello.

A Zenith spokeswoman said in an August statement that the company has been consistent with the government, press and public.

The spokeswoman took issue with Rathfelder characterizing shipments as “exports” when Zenith’s recent vessel movements have been domestic. Regulators’ data shows 11 suspected crude oil shipments from Zenith in 2019, and company officials provided documents last week showing that all traveled to U.S. ports.

The Oregonian/OregonLive provided spokeswoman Megan Mastal with a copy of Rathfelder’s notes but Mastal did not comment on them.

Rathfelder said in an interview that her notes represent what Zenith executives said at the meeting. She said she is unsure which Zenith representative said the company was not handling tar sands oil and had ceased its shipments.

In the interview, Rathfelder stressed that she needs good information to help the mayor develop city policies.

“It’s important for me to have accurate information,” Rathfelder said.

She said that is especially so given public concern about the safety of Zenith’s earthquake-vulnerable facility and the freight trains carrying crude oil to it through the Columbia River Gorge.

“This isn’t small,” Rathfelder said. “It’s an oil terminal sitting on a liquefaction zone and we’re 50 years overdue for an earthquake.”

She said officials in the mayor’s office and other city bureaus have explored avenues for additional oversight of Zenith as well as new city laws on fossil fuels infrastructure.

One way to provide increased oversight would be to attach special provisions to city construction permits.

Officials may soon have the chance: Zenith recently sought assistance from the city development bureau in applying for permits to connect its storage tanks to another riverside jetty via underground pipes.

A letter submitted to the city permits bureau by an engineering firm hired by Zenith states the purpose of the project is to “install piping to transport biodiesel and a liquid intermediate that is used to make products such as polyurethane, adhesives, and sealants.”

Mastal said Zenith cannot disclose the name of the liquid intermediate due to a “customer confidentiality agreement.”

Zenith’s letter states the project “is not related to crude oil in any way.”

Asked to verify that, Mastal emailed, “As stated in our application to the Bureau of Development Services, the proposed assets will have nothing to do with crude oil.”

Note: This story, originally published in August, was fully updated throughout on Sept. 5 to correct one erroneous fact provided by state officials, include additional information Zenith provided this week and last and provide additional context.

— Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com