Germany Critical Minerals: Lithium, KfW Fund & China Risk

• Germany critical minerals imports top 90% for rare earths
• Altmark brine holds 43 million tonnes of lithium potential
• KfW raw materials fund grows to €1.5 billion by 2027
• China restricts gallium, germanium and antimony exports
• Canada and UK sign new 2026 mineral partnerships
• Tradium GmbH anchors Germany’s technology metals trade

Germany critical minerals policy sits at an uncomfortable junction: Europe’s largest manufacturing economy builds the cars, machinery and electronics that consume copper, lithium and rare earth elements at industrial scale, yet it mines almost none of them domestically. That gap between demand and extraction is now driving the most active period of German raw materials policy since the 1970s, spanning a state-backed investment fund, a newly quantified domestic lithium resource, and a fast-moving effort to cut reliance on China. For the wider regional picture, see CMN’s Europe critical minerals hub.

Germany Critical Minerals: Import Dependence Meets Industrial Scale

Germany’s exposure is concentrated at the top of the value chain. Roughly 30% of gross value added in German manufacturing involves products containing copper, and a similar share touches lithium or rare earth content, according to KfW’s own analysis of the domestic industrial base. Rare earth elements are the sharpest pressure point: Germany sources more than 90% of its REE imports from China, and for specific elements like cerium and lanthanum the 2024 EU-wide figure was above 99%. That concentration is why Berlin now treats raw materials as a security question, not just a procurement one, and it is the same dependency structure that shapes CMN’s China critical minerals coverage.

Which Critical Minerals Does Germany Produce?

Domestic extraction is real but narrow. Germany remains a significant global producer of industrial and essential minerals — rock salt, potash, kaolin and lignite among them — and processes meaningful volumes of graphite, magnesium, aluminium and zinc through its refining and metallurgy base. What it does not produce at scale is the higher-value technology metal and battery material inputs that its own automotive and electronics sectors consume, which is why the domestic project pipeline described below matters disproportionately. Background on one of the metals in that gap is covered in CMN’s graphite explainer.

Germany’s Domestic Lithium Projects: Altmark and Beyond

The headline domestic story is the Altmark Lithium Project in Saxony-Anhalt. Neptune Energy, which has produced natural gas from the Altmark field since 1969, commissioned an independent CIM/NI 43-101 assessment from Sproule ERCE in 2025 that identified 43 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent in the field’s deep brines — one of the largest project-related lithium resources reported anywhere. If commercial extraction proceeds, the project could yield up to 25,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate annually, enough for roughly 500,000 electric vehicles a year. That is a resource estimate rather than a proven reserve, though: Germany’s own mineral resources agency (DERA/BGR) has noted the figure remains unproven, and Neptune’s commissioned economic study puts commercial extraction starting only in 2033, after a research phase to 2028 and an investment phase through 2032. A separate hard-rock project, Zinnwald Lithium in Saxony, is also in development. For pricing context on the metal itself, see CMN’s lithium explainer. In the meantime Germany remains reliant on imports, sourcing a large share of its current lithium carbonate supply from Chile — a dependency covered in CMN’s Chile critical minerals hub.

The KfW Raw Materials Fund and Europe’s Coordinated Push

Germany’s primary policy lever is the Raw Materials Fund (Rohstofffonds), launched by the federal government in February 2024 and managed by state development bank KfW. The fund takes equity stakes of between €50 million and €150 million in mining, processing and recycling projects that feed German or EU industry, and has so far backed two named projects: a €150 million commitment to Vulcan Energy’s domestic lithium venture, and up to €50 million for Arafura Rare Earths’ project in Australia. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government confirmed in 2026 that the fund is being expanded from €1 billion to as much as €1.5 billion from 2027, reflecting continued pressure to diversify away from Chinese-dominated supply chains. Germany coordinates this work alongside France and Italy, which announced parallel national funds in 2024 as part of a wider push now folded into the EU’s critical raw materials stockpiling strategy — see CMN’s EU Critical Raw Materials Act guide for the bloc-wide framework, and the KfW Raw Materials Fund for the current eligibility criteria. Full technical detail on the Altmark resource is available directly from Neptune Energy’s project page.

Reducing China Reliance: Germany’s International Partnerships

Beyond domestic extraction, Germany has been signing bilateral agreements to lock in alternative supply. A June 2026 joint statement between Chancellor Merz and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney committed both governments to deepen raw materials cooperation, building on Canada’s position as a resource-rich, politically aligned supplier — see CMN’s Canada critical minerals hub for the domestic side of that relationship. A separate May 2026 agreement between the UK’s Department for Business and Trade and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy targets rare earth magnet recycling and lithium infrastructure. Both moves sit alongside recent Chinese export restrictions on gallium, germanium, tungsten and antimony, which have accelerated Berlin’s diversification timeline — CMN covers the mechanics of those controls in its China export controls guide. Gallium and germanium pricing itself is tracked on CMN’s sister site: see gallium price data and germanium price data on Rare Earth Mining.

Companies Active in Germany’s Critical Minerals Sector

Germany’s technology metals trade runs through established specialist dealers rather than miners. Tradium GmbH, profiled on CMN as Tradium GmbH: Europe’s Technology Metals Dealer, is an active MMTA member and one of the more visible German trading houses in minor and technology metals. On the processing and recycling side, Belgium-headquartered Umicore — covered in CMN’s Umicore battery materials profile — operates significant European recycling capacity that German battery and electronics manufacturers draw on, illustrating how the country’s supply chain leans on regional rather than purely domestic infrastructure.

Germany Critical Minerals Outlook

Germany critical minerals policy is shifting from import dependency toward a slower, state-backed build-out of domestic and allied supply. The Altmark and Zinnwald lithium projects will not change import numbers this decade, and the KfW fund’s €1-1.5 billion scale is modest next to the €216 billion of raw materials Germany imports annually. What has changed is the willingness to spend public money and sign bilateral agreements to de-risk the industrial base — a shift likely to keep generating named deals, fund expansions and policy announcements through the rest of 2026.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.