Today's inventory numbers showed a 5 million barrel draw, and what did oil prices do? They tumbled… big time.

They are actually sitting around $54 a barrel after dipping as low as $53.80. And to top it all off, some producers are already warning about lower profits. Of course that is to be expected following record-breaking highs from near record-breaking oil prices.

Now we're seeing a split in the oil industry. More specifically, within the oil services sector.

We've always touted oil services over oil producers when oil prices are volatile or in decline.

Some of our favorites have been offshore drilling companies like Transocean, Inc. (RIG:NYSE) and Global SantaFe (GSF:NYSE). My colleague Steve Lord, editor of Trend Investor, and I both agree that oil services have more of an edge when it comes to battling falling oil prices.

The reason being is that oil producers can't back out of their contracts with oil service providers. Some of these oil service companies have backlogs running into 2008 and 2009 with values into the millions and billions. That will keep their bottom lines quite steady through rocky oil prices.

But we're now seeing a bit of a split, at least at the moment, within the oil services industry.

Today's oil flop had brought down these offshore drillers… RIG dropped about 1% by the end of the trading day and GSF dropped more than 2%.

In the meantime, other oil service companies, like Oceaneering International, Inc. (OII:NYSE) and Tidewater, Inc. (TDW:NYSE), came back a bit after the news.

Here's my theory… I think investors are inclined to lump all oil companies into one basket, and erase their little niches. These separate industries should perform differently in times when oil prices drop.

As yet, they are not, and that's a bit frustrating -- not to mention alarming.

A MarketWatch.com article notes, “Natural-gas prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange have plunged almost 30% since peaking at the end of November, raising concerns that demand for oil and gas field services will evaporate as natural gas stockpiles grow. But analysts said investors are being blinded by the weak North American gas market, failing to see the continued strong demand for companies with the wherewithal to drill for oil abroad or far offshore.”

I think, though, as more focus comes to the offshore drilling sector and the ever-essential oil services sector, we'll start seeing these moving differently than oil producers.

Until then, hold on to your hats.