One player said: "Everything is up in the air." Such a plan "may be a preferred option at this point considering the improvements in the tanker market," he adds. "There are some good names out there prepared to help manage and support a stand-alone plan."

Such discussions appear to present at least a potential challenge to John Fredriksen's Frontline, which otherwise seems to be bolstering its position as the favourite to control the Golden fleet.

Frontline saw yet another competitor fall late Wednesday when Schanson Energy of Houston withdrew its bid, saying it could not find enough value in the fleet to raise its bid from around $36m, equal to 10 cents on the dollar or less.

Schanson advisor Matt McCleery of Marine Money Capital Partners said that while Frontline is the world's leading VLCC consolidator and rival Bentley Investments has above-market charters on Golden dry-bulk vessels, Schanson has no such special incentives.

"The fact is that they're both in a special situation and we are not," he said.

A fourth suitor, the team of Wexford Management and owner Peter Georgiopoulos, had dropped out without submitting a bid.

It is unclear whether talk of a stand-alone plan is a credible option or a device to exert additional pressure on Frontline, which if anything seems more confident by the day.

Before news of Schanson's withdrawal, Frontline's Tor Olav Troim already was saying that Frontline's bid of 17 cents on the dollar appeared to be the lone viable bid. Bentley's cash/paper offer of 15.5 cents would be found technically deficient by the court as it stands, he predicted.

He would not comment on the still-murky outlines of a stand-alone plan, but sources indicate there are several hurdles for such an effort. Golden has passed a court-imposed deadline for submitting such a plan. The plan must be presented by the secured creditors' committee, made up of Japanese senior lenders who welcome Frontline's intervention. Further, the company needs between $20m and $30m in cash to pay administrative claims arising from the bankruptcy process. Even if it can raise that much money, Frontline has obtained more than one-third of the shares in Golden Ocean's $291m bond issue and can veto the plan. Finally, Frontline would remain the largest shareholder in a revived company.

Troim pointed out this week that the offer Golden creditors are now weighing is a smaller one than they could have had earlier in the process -- if they had locked into a stock offering from the Oslo-listed company. That would now be worth about 28 cents on the dollar. "We would have been on the hook for that amount," Troim said.

"In many ways, they decided to take a gamble to keep Bentley in the process."