This is the moment scuba divers stopped to fish out dozens of tubs of oil that were floating in the sea.

The group of friends had been sailing to a dive spot off the coast of Taipei, Taiwan when they noticed the plastic barrels on July 24.

Instead of scuba diving, they then spent the afternoon pulling the buckets marked 'New Mariner Oil' alongside Chinese letters out of the ocean.

Diving instructor Wang Mingxiang, said they scooped 24 barrels out of the sea with the help of their guests.

Many of them still had oil inside while they were floating in waters around the Keelung Tideland Park and Wanghai Lane Conservation.

Wang said: "We could smell the oil from our boat. The odour was strong."

The incident was reported to the Keelung City Government and the sea patrol units conducted an investigation.

It said that they will compare the recovered buckets against the ones used by the passing ships to narrow down the culprit.

Wang added: ''We should be looking after the ocean not allowing barrels of oil to be just floating around near the beach.

''They could have harmed the marine life.''