Germany is Europe's largest, and the world's fifth largest economy (CIA World Factbook). The country is one of the biggest commodity consumers worldwide, particularly in terms of mineral resources. 

While generally regarded as a resource-poor country, it has relatively large deposits of lignite, potash and rock salt as well as rocks and soils for the construction industry. Oil and gas are extracted, mainly in North Germany and the North Sea. Lignite is mainly extracted in North-Rhine Westphalia and Brandenburg. 

The extractive industries contribution to Germany's GDP is below 0.2% (2016 EITI Report, for 2015). Extraction holds regional importance because of employment in the open pit mines. Germany-wide, extractive companies in Germany generate sales of around €9.2 billion with 71,000 employees. 

Germany is a federal country and much of the information on licencing is on state level. Non-tax revenues (such as royalites) are paid on the state-level, while the trade tax is paid on municiple level.

Germany uses the EITI:

• as a place to pull together all decentralised information, through their dedicated website;
• as a platform to address misunderstandings between the government, civil society and companies on the extractives sector;
• Internationally, as a way to highlight the environmental and social rules governing the extractives sector, with regulation to be followed prior to any approval for extraction; 
• to highlight their committment to transparency, accountability and good governance of natural resources.

Concerning extraction, one of the main topics in Germany is the future of brown coal. The government has formed a multi-stakeholder commission (not related to the EITI) to work on a plan on how to move into a low-carbon energy generation while easening the impact it has on the mining regions. 

Approval of mining projects

Germany does not use bidding to obtain mining projects. Getting a mining permit is first and foremost an administrative procedure. To carry out extraction the company needs to present an operating plan, which the government administration checks against the legal requirements (including social and environmental). The operating plan is revised regularly. 

Examples of online cadastres in German Federal states

A Transparency Register was established on June 26, 2017 within the framework of the implementation of the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (EU) 2015/849, which requires member states to hold a central register of beneficial owners. As of February 2019, the Transprency Register required the proof of legitimate interest in order to access the information. 

The Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (EU) 2018/843 requires this register to be accessible to the general public without demonstrating legitimate interest. Germany needs to implement this directive by 10 January 2020, when the regulation comes into effect. 

In Germany, family companies (some of which are the country's largest) principally lobbied against public access to beneficial ownership information, the open data organisation present on the German MSG found (open knowlegde foundation). 

Coal

In terms of value of production, brown coal (also called lignite) is the most important natural resource in Germany, in terms of the value of production at EUR 2.3 bn (2016). Around 90% of the lignite Germany produces is used to generate electricity and district heating. 

The three main lignite extraction areas are in the regions of Rhenish (North Rhine-Westphalia), Lausitz (south of Berlin, in Brandenburg) and Central German (Saxony). In Rhenish, the most important mining site, the lignite-mining region covers a 2,500 km2 area to the west of Cologne, operated by RWE Power AG. It is also known as the "Garzweiler lignite mine" and is also the largest mine by surface. In Lausitz, south of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg, LEAG operates extraction on four different sites. It was an important industrial site in the economy of the former German Democratic Republic. 

Stone coal extraction was phased out in December 2018. Subsidies continue to flow towards stone coal to ease the transition for the former mining regions most affected by the closure of the sites.

Oil and gas

There were 50 crude oil fields in Germany in 2015. These fields extract oil by means of some 1,000 production wells in drilling installations (onshore) and production platforms (offshore). In 2015, the oilfields of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony yielded almost 90% of the total German production. The biggest oil extraction site is "Mittelplate", which is operated by DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG, Hamburg.

Oil and gas production

Due to the federal structure of the Federal Republic of Germany, tax administration is split between the Federal Government and the states. Depending on the type of tax, it is levied by the financial authorities of the Federal Government, the states or the local authorities. One exception to this rule is minesite and extraction royalties, which are levied by the mining authorities of the states.

The 2016 EITI Report is the first time that citizens can see what the total contribution of one company is to different tax authorities on different political levels. 

Due to stringent tax confidentiality laws, the companies participating in reconciliation need to grant tax authorities an exemption from tax secrecy (a so-called "waver").

The Federal state structure of the Federal Republic of Germany is reflected in the distribution of tax revenues. The level which has the authority for the revenues, i.e. how they are distributed between the Federal Government, the states and the municipalities is regulated by Article 106 of the Basic Law (GG), in which a distinction is made between so-called ‘community taxes’ and taxes which flow in their entirety to the municipalities, states or Federal Government. In the case of community taxes, the revenues are shared between the Federal Government and the states.

The main revenues are generated through extraction and minesite royalites and paid to federal mining authorities. They vary grately, depending on the local mining activity.