Minnow Overland Resources has pulled the pin on a deal to acquire the Trojan gold project from Westgold Resources.

Overland (ASX:OVR) made its decision after deciding a dilution of shares was not in the best interest of its shareholders.

Instead the explorer will direct spending towards its activities at the recently acquired Yandal East project.

The stock climbed 12 per cent to 0.9c in Friday trade.

Overland inked a deal with Westgold for Trojan back in December for a 12-month option to buy the project.

Trojan lies 55km from Kalgoorlie. About 130,000 ounces of gold have been mined from two open pits — the last in 2004.

Little work had been done since, but there is a remaining resource of 145,000 ounces of gold.

Overland conducted a 32-hole drilling program earlier this year at Trojan with encouraging results at the new One Tree prospect including 7 metres at 2.5 grams of gold per tonne.

Meantime, Overland grabbed an option to buy 75 per cent of Yandal East from Zebina Minerals last month giving it a significant landholding in the world-class Yandal Greenstone Belt.

The belt hosts several significant gold mines including Norther Star’s Jundee mine which has produced 7 million ounces, as well as the Bronzewing mine (4Moz produced) and Darlot mine (3. 5Moz produced).

Yandal East covers 327 square kilometres of the belt and is made up of five tenements including four granted exploration licences and one exploration licence under application.

Overland has a market cap of around $5 million.