The Oil Drum (TOD) was founded and frequented by believers in the theory of peak oil, the hypothetical point at which the world's oil supplies go into irreversible decline. Peak oil devotees typically predict that apocalyptic economic consequences would follow hard on falling crude supplies. In a note to readers TOD contributor and co-founder and former President of ASPO Netherlands (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas Netherlands) Rembrandt Koppelaar explained:

A few weeks ago the ISEOF board (The Institute for Energy and Our Future that facilitates The Oil Drum), Euan, Super G, JoulesBurn, and Myself, met to discuss the future of The Oil Drum. A discussion we have had several times in the last year, due to scarcity of new content caused by a dwindling number of contributors. Despite our best efforts to fill this gap we have not been able to significantly improve the flow of high quality articles.

The folks over at Marketwatch at the Wall Street Journal speculate:

With news of record-breaking North American oil and gas production seemingly every day, maybe it just got too hard to maintain a site devoted to the notion that the world's oil production was at or near a peak.

You think? As long as people remain free to benefit from their creativity, then Malthusians will always be wrong.

For more background see my post, "Remembering 'Peak Oil' Madness," and my articles, "Political Peak Oil," and "Peak Oil Panic."