The paper proposes and discusses a methodology to quantify the economic potential of a plant subject to market variability. Price fluctuations and marketuncertainty are analyzed and modeled. The manuscript assesses the variability of raw and product prices (i.e. hydrocarbons in the HDA process) related to a reference indicator (i.e. crude oil). Afterwards, it proposes a methodology to forecast a series of economic scenarios to quantify the feasibility of installing and running the HDA process (according to a dynamic interpretation of the economic potentials proposed by Douglas, 1988). Finally, the paper evaluates the statistical distribution of adynamic economic potential to quantify the financial risk of investment on such a plant.