BERLIN - Germany could have enough lithium reserves to cover its domestic needs for several decades, a study showed on Thursday, as Berlin seeks to boost its electric vehicle production and cut dependency on critical raw material imports.

The German Raw Materials Agency estimates the country's lithium demand at up to 0.17-million metric tons per year by 2030. Germany's automotive industry relies on imports from Australia, Argentina, Chile and China to cover its battery production needs.

Researchers and companies have been exploring ways to extract lithium as a byproduct of geothermal energy production in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley to boost domestic supply and renewable heating and power solutions.

A study by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and Fraunhofer IEG institute found that Germany had up to 26.51-million metric tons of lithium reserves, dissolved in deep underground waters, particularly in the North German Basin and the central Thuringian Basin.

"This assessment of potential is new. When you add everything up, it turns out there could indeed be surprisingly high lithium resources lying dormant underground," Katharina Alms, the research leader at Fraunhofer IEG, told Reuters.

In 2021, geologists estimated that the Upper Rhine Valley in the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany held enough lithium for more than 400-million EVs.

Lithium exploration has gained momentum in Germany despite concerns over difficulties of extracting it.

ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso Deutschland received four exploration licences in Lower Saxony in December. German oil firm Neptune Energy said in August it received exploration permits for the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

However, Alms said extracting lithium in Germany faces several challenges as not all locations contain high concentrations, making exploration unpredictable.

Many identified lithium resources are also trapped in low-permeability rocks, making extraction technically difficult and surface extraction techniques sometimes require specialized methods that can be complex and time-consuming to implement on a large scale, she added.

Germany imported 23.7-billion euros worth of batteries in 2023, with lithium batteries accounting for 86%, according to trade group ZVEI.