A cargo ship is docked at the foreign trade container terminal of Qingdao Port in China's eastern Shandong province on Wednesday.AFP/Getty Images

Many container ships delivering cargo from China to the Middle East are taking triple the amount of time to reach the region than usual, a shipping analyst has told CNN.

Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, an ocean and air freight firm, said many ships leaving China — carrying cargo including food and pharmaceuticals — are sailing to the Red Sea port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia instead of through the Strait of Hormuz to Dubai.

But the threat of potential Houthi militant attacks on ships passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait at the base of the Red Sea, means the vessels are taking an exceptionally long route.

Sand said these ships were sailing across the Indian Ocean, around the southern tip of Africa, up and east through the Mediterranean Sea and then down through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea from the top. The route takes about 60 days — up from the roughly 20 days it takes for a cargo ship travelling from China to Dubai.

According to Xeneta data, the average cost of transporting one 40-foot container along the China-Jeddah route was more than $5,800 yesterday.

That’s almost four times more expensive than it was to move the same container from China to Dubai a month ago.

Once a ship drops its cargo off at Jeddah port, it make the long trip back to China. A “long line of trucks” wait at Jeddah to transport goods across the Gulf, added Sand, adding yet more time onto deliveries.